


A Wise Man is a Man who doesn't Trust a Teenager

by Alainne1



Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Dark, Emotions, F/M, Hurt, Killing, Mature and Dark Themes, Romance, Teenage Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:46:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3435689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alainne1/pseuds/Alainne1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We are losing her, Gin-san! I don't know what we can do anymore!"</p><p>How will Yorozura survive when Kagura's Yato instincts surface with her teenage? What will happen when she loses control? What can those who love her most do to help her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Beginning There Was Moldy Yoghurt

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native English speaker so I hope you can forgive me some of my mistakes. All feedback is highly valued. :)
> 
> 23.6.2015: Some minor corrections and additions made to all chapters in order to make the story more fluent.

_**PROLOGUE** _

 

_We are losing her, Gin-san! I don't know what we can do anymore…_

_#_

_Okita-san, you know I wouldn't have called you if I had any other choice._

 

_She killed again?_

 

_On a job... And he was a nasty opponent… But still, he didn’t deserve to die. I can't control her anymore, not really. I still can restrain her strength-wise, but it’s no use. I can’t connect with her anymore. She’s rebelling, like a teenager rebels against her parents._

 

_But Danna, why me?_

_Just a thought. You always seemed to have a connection with her._

_A connection…_

 

* * *

 

 

“Shin-chaan! Shin-chaaaan! Where are you? Where’s the breakfast?” Kagura moaned as she walked towards the kitchen rubbing her sleepy eyes.

“Shinpachi’s not here. I’m sure there’s something in the fridge you still can eat. I think the yoghurts expired only last weekend. Your stomach should be able to handle those.” The lazy voice came from the character lying on the couch reading Jump. “And Kagura, while you’re at it, could you bring me one of those strawberry parfaits?”

Without answering, the Kagura padded to the refrigerator in their kitchen. “Yuck! This one is all hairy with mold!” she exclaimed from the kitchen and returned to the living room.

“Ah, maybe it was last month instead of last weekend,” Gintoki reflected from the couch with his eyes still glued on the pages of the magazine. “Did you bring the parfait?” When there was no answer he finally lowered the magazine just to notice the half empty cup of his strawberry parfait in Kagura’s hand.

“NO!” he exclaimed with a shocked voice. “Don’t eat it, you brat! It’s mine!” Gintoki leaped from the couch in one smooth movement to tackle the sleepy yato in order to save last spoonfuls of his precious parfait. Kagura, surprised by the sudden attack, was locked under his weight when Gintoki triumphantly collected his prize and savored the taste of strawberries in his mouth.

Sitting on top of her, Gintoki suddenly realized how grown-up her body felt between his thighs. _Oh crap, I should definitely stop wrestling with her_ ,he thought while rushing up from the floor. Kagura was already 17 years old, and while it was easy to forget her being practically a woman when she still stuck on her childish behavior, her body had definitely gained a more womanish shape during the recent years.

“Gin-chan, you stole it, you bastard…” Kagura whined from the floor, completely oblivious to Gintoki’s thoughts. “Why isn’t Shinpachi here to make me breakfast?”

“Indeed… Why isn’t Shinpachi here to make us breakfast?” Gintoki echoed.

The two lounged through the morning and were still in their pajamas when Shinpachi finally came. The flat was messy with clothes scattered around the floor and dirty dishes lying on the table. Gintoki was snoring under his Jump and Kagura watched TV leisurely lying on Sadaharu’s back, swinging her legs in the air and absentmindedly stroking Sadaharu’s fur behind his ear.

Shinpachi stared at the sight in silence, his cheek twitching with irritation.

“Could you two be ANY MORE LAZY??”

“Oooh, Shinpachi, did you come to make breakfast?” Kagura asked, eyeing him hopefully.

“Break—what? No! Do your own breakfast you bums. Gin-san, I have a job for us.”

“A job? What kind of job?” Gintoki’s body showed no signs of being more awake than a moment ago. “Is there money in it?”

“Yes, enough money for you to lift your lazy ass from that chair for once. We need to track down some stolen items.”

“Uuuuh, sounds exiting, right Gin-chan?” Kagura said, straightening her body and fixing her pajamas.

“Yes, sure… Wait!” Gintoki had suddenly lost all the afternoon sluggishness in his voice. “You can’t come, Kagura.” Gintoki followed as the expression on Kagura’s face turned from exited to miserable and then gradually angrier. Shinpachi took two steps to be closer to the door in a case of emergency. Gintoki sighed heavily. “We have talked about this. After what happened last time, I can’t take the risk of bringing you to anywhere where there is even a remote possibility of a fight.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Kagura asked, her voice rising. “It’s me, god dammit. Anywhere I go, there is always a possibility of a fight! And it’s not remote!”

“Yes, that’s the problem exactly. You can’t just go around killing people as you like.”

“Killing people as I like? When the hell have I ‘killed people as I liked’? Kagura yelled imitating Gintoki’s voice.

“The last job—“

“Don’t mention it. The guy was coming at me! It wasn’t me who attacked!”

“But it was you who didn’t stop after the enemy was already down.” Gintoki took a deep breath before continuing, trying to calm himself down. Nothing good would follow if he took Kagura’s example and started arguing. Calmness was the key. _Be calm like a strawberry in a glass of milk,_ he told himself. _How was that calm exactly? And there really aren’t strawberries in strawberry milk. But the name surely suggests there are. Life is so complicated. Wait, this was supposed to be about calmness_ , Gintoki reminded himself and returned to the current situation.Being calm was the only way to manage. They had fought over this for so many times already. “Kagura-chan, you are going through some very difficult times right now. I wished I could help you more, but the only thing I can do is not to give you the chance to follow your… instincts.”

Kagura’s eyes were fierce when she stared at Gintoki and Gintoki wished he could understand her better. Kagura looked so disappointed. She was angry and lonely and disappointed in him. He couldn’t be there for her like a real brother or a real father – he would never be able to understand what she was going through.

“You don’t know a single thing about me,” she spat at him. “You’re not my father. You can’t tell me, what to do.”

“I know, Kagura-chan, but I care about you. You’re like a baby sister to me and I care about you.”

Shinpachi had backed out to the porch by now and was ready to flee at any signs of upcoming explosion.

Kagura’s eyes were venomous when she looked at Gintoki. “You say you care, but still you’re taking away everything I have in my life. How is that caring?”

Gintoki sighed again heavily. There seemed to be no arguments that would help Kagura understand his point of view, and the humanity’s point of view, for that. The not-killing-people part of the argument. Sometimes Gintoki couldn’t believe his eyes and ears when he listened to Kagura. Was she really the same girl who had lived with him all these years? For a moment he considered bringing up his conversation with Okita, but decided soon that it was not a good time. Kagura wouldn’t take any ideas from him in this state of mind.

“I’m sorry, Kagura. Patsuan, let’s get going.”

 

#

 

“Fuuuck, fucking fuck I hate this fucking world!” Kagura yelled at the walls of the apartment after Gintoki and Shinpachi were long gone. “I hate the people! I hate their friggin’ sunlight, I HATE EVERYONE!” When her voice died, the silence felt deeper than before. The apartment was listening to her lonely outburst. Kagura stood there silently for a moment before she let herself fall back to the couch and buried her face to her hands. Raging alone was no use. “I hate everyone…” she muttered.

“Well, that’s reassuring,” stated an annoyingly familiar voice behind her. “I always knew you hated me, so it’s just nice to know that I’m no exception in your books.”

Kagura turned her head to face the interrupter of her private ranting. Okita Sougo was leaning against the doorframe and studying her miserable state. Her hair was a mess from a wrestling match with a misfortunate couch pillow, her eyes were puffed from sobbing between the first and second round of previous and she was still in her pajamas because of, well, just laziness, incredible laziness. She was an utter mess and well aware of it.

“What do you want from here?” she spat as uninvitingly as possible. _If I’m a complete mess, I might as well be a rude mess_ , she thought bitterly.

“I actually came to look for Danna,” Okita replied. His voice was casual with no hint of any offence taken either by her looks or her rudeness. _How annoying_.

“On a job. Don’t know when he’s coming back.”

“On a job without you?”

Kagura glowered at him. _Really? Salt in the wounds. Just fitting for a sadist like him._ She studied the face of the boy – well, now a grown man – who had been her rival, maybe also her friend, and most definitely the subject of her secret childish crush for years. When they had been younger, they had spent plenty of time together. Fighting, with or without beetles, had been their favorite pastime. But it was past now. These days they didn’t meet too often, their fights and friendship had diminished, and the memory of her former childish crush on the Shinsengumi 1st division captain made Kagura either laugh or shake her head with embarrassment. Okita must have thought her very funny, becoming fond of him like that even though he had been already almost a man and she still a little girl.

Okita straightened up and took a few steps to enter the living room. “Cute pajamas you’ve got there,” he said with just a tiny hint of laughter in his voice.

Kagura unconsciously looked down at her clothes just to find remains of the strawberry parfait on her bust, her top twisted from all the wrestling and her pants dangling dangerously low. She straightened the top hastily and tugged her pajama pants up in order to avoid any accidental presentation of private body parts.

“Busting into people homes just to criticize the way they are clothed,” she snorted. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Nah, I guess I don’t. I have the afternoon off.”

“Are you going to spend it here?”

“Is that an invitation?”

“No.”

“Well, then I guess I’m not.”

“Good.”

Kagura wondered why Okita was still lingering in the living room. She had been clear enough of her preference of being alone. She tried to intimidate him by staring and ended up finding herself studying him with surprising interest. He was still handsome. Maybe even more handsome now that his childish features had hardened into more masculine ones. Roundness in his face diminished, bangs of sandy hair slightly more disciplined. Very handsome indeed. Kagura filed all these things in her hear and then abruptly turned her back to him. He should get the hint and leave already.

Okita turned to go and walked to the door. “Bye then, China.”

A nickname that Kagura hadn’t heard in ages. Kagura glanced at the door once more, but Okita was gone. She stared at the door for a long time before turning back. _China._ The Sadist had always called her China. He still did, but they saw each other so rarely that she had forgotten.

“One more thing, China,” sang a voice suddenly from the door making Kagura jump at her seat. Kagura turned herself to the door to face him once more, waiting. Okita had an almost innocent look on his face when he spoke. “Do you wanna fight sometime? I’ve missed kicking your puny little ass.”

“If you mean you’ve missed getting your ass kicked, I like the sound of it,” Kagura challenged.

“As if that would be possible.” The mocking sound of their old rivalry was starting to kick in.

Kagura pondered about the idea for a moment. Gin-chan had quite deliberately told her not to fight under any circumstances but these weren’t any circumstances. There was no way she would accidentally... That something _like that_ would happen when she fought with Okita. And the promise of a good fight, it made her whole body tingle. She needed a good fight. And who was Gin-chan to tell her what to do, anyway? She could make her own decisions. She was practically an adult anyway.

“Sure, I’d like kicking your ass if that’s what you came here for,” Kagura said with a jaunty smile on her lips.

“I have the afternoon off. Wanna come to the park now?”

“Now?”

“Well, you definitely look like you could let off some steam,” Okita chuckled. “Just change your clothes before we go. I don’t want to have your last week’s lunch menu all over my uniform. I’ll wait outside.”

Okita disappeared before Kagura could come up with any response to the latest insult. _What a prick._ Nevertheless, she stood up at once and searched her closet for some nice and comfortable clothes. _Fighting clothes…_ She savored the words in her mouth. _Fighting. I’ve been missing this so much._


	2. Fighting is the Spice of Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so happy to see that people had liked the first chapter. :) I hope you like this one as well!

The grass in the park was out grown and a chilly wind ripped leaves from the trees as Kagura and Okita stood silently studying each other. Their fight hadn’t even started, yet Kagura’s heart was racing. Her body seemed to react to the upcoming fight, to the suspense between them. Her hands and feet were tingling as blood rushed through her veins. Kagura tried to steady her breathing but it was nearly impossible to calm down. She couldn’t wait another second.

“Come.” Okita said. “Come at me.”

He didn’t have to say word. Kagura was already flying forward. The sweet sensation of wind on her cheeks and her hair as she swiftly moved towards her opponent made her heart skip a beat. A smile spread on her face when she landed the first blow. Okita blocked it easily but Kagura hadn’t expected anything less. This was just the beginning. They hadn’t sparred with each other for years.

The first blows they exchanged were almost gentle. They were just feeling each other after the long time apart, getting into the rhythm of their most fluent common language. Kagura delivered well aimed, yet soft punches and tentative kicks. They were testing each other, trying to remember the way the other moved. Kagura thoroughly enjoyed the moment, the feel of the movement, and the joy and life surging through her veins.

The tempo of the music inside her head increased as her blows gained more power and her feet gained more speed. She released herself into another attack and let herself get absorbed into the dance. Okita was dancing as well but his dance was a different one. He kept dodging and blocking the attacks almost leisurely without letting the smug smile on his face falter. He wasn’t attacking, Kagura realized. He just played along and studied his opponent.

“Why are you holding back?” Kagura asked irritably. “Fight me properly, Sadist.”

To her annoyance, Okita just smirked.

She threw herself on him again, this time aiming at his head instead of his shoulders. She wanted to force the Sadist to take her seriously and seeing how easily Okita dodged the kick and the follow-up strike, sent a sharp wave of anger through her body. Okita was just playing around, taking her as a fool. It was almost as if he wasn’t fighting this fight at all, he was merely shooing off an annoying fly.

“Fight me, you jerk!” she snarled when she turned again to face her opponent.

“Maybe I’ll fight you if you can show me that there’s something worth fighting,” Okita answered in his mocking tone. “I’m just not comfortable wasting my time with such weaklings…”

Kagura swallowed hard and stared at him. Sure she remembered how Okita had always mocked her, but today it felt different. She had been anticipating for the fight and it was Okita who had asked her here in the first place. Why had he asked her if he wasn’t even going to fight her seriously?

“Come, come, China… Show me what you’ve got!” Okita said smirking and Kagura didn’t hesitate to comply.

“I will make you fight me properly, you stupid jerk of a sadist,” she yelled as she loaded a powerful kick towards Okita’s ribs. She was finally able to deliver a hit but a punishment followed immediately. She had been so frustrated to break Okita’s defense that she had left herself wide open. Okita didn’t leave such a chance unused and Kagura could feel a sharp pain in her ribs almost immediately. Yet, the way Okita had brought his knee to her side was only a reminder that would leave a small bruise. It was a reminder that he could’ve inflicted much more damage if he wanted to.

When Kagura saw the smug smirk on Okita’s face, her mind went blurry. The bastard was clearly taking her as a joke. Kagura did not stop to think anymore when she continued launching attacks at him. That smug face… She would definitely wipe away that annoying smile. Her surroundings dimmed as she heard the drumming sound of her beating heart in her ears. She didn’t hold herself back anymore as she rushed forward with her furious attacks. She put in more power and more speed but still wasn’t able to deliver good solid hits. Only scratches here and there, minor damage. And the more she allowed her rage to take control, the more openings she seemed to leave for Okita.

Kagura quickly took distance and gained a steady stance. Her chest heaved rapidly with ragged, heavy breathing. She could feel the bruises forming around her ribs from Okita’s well-aimed knees. Kagura didn’t mind the bruises but the fact that she was so out of breath… She was disgusted by her bad shape. Being in such a shape… In front of Okita of all people. Her cheeks weren’t burning only by rage. Being this weak against him – it was so embarrassing Kagura could hardly swallow the shame.

 _Why am I so weak?_ a tiny voice in her head asked. _Why does it seem like I’m losing?_ Maybe if Kagura would had stopped to listen to the voice, stopped to consider the way she fought even for a second, she might have realized that her loss had been sealed when she had lost her calm and given in to her rage. But Kagura didn’t stop. All she could see was Okita’s smug face in front of her – the face that made her blood boil and veins in her head pop. She now saw that Okita had clearly asked her to fight only to humiliate her. Humiliate her, mock her, laugh at her… Okita had always been a sadist and demeaning her like this was just another pleasure of his.

Kagura eyed her opponent furiously. Okita looked way too calm and neat to her preference. His uniform was still straight and his stance slack. _Maybe he’s just a really good actor because there’s just no way he hasn’t even broken sweat yet_ , Kagura thought bitterly. _There’s no way he can take my attacks idly if I’m already completely out of breath._

“Is that all you’ve got, China? What have you been doing all these years? Watching TV and stuffing you face with sweets?”

Air around Kagura was thick with rage. She bolted furiously into one more attack and landed a hard hit on Okita’s side.

“You bastard… You fucking bastard,” she hissed between her teeth. “I’ll show you what I’ve got!”

The declaration was followed by series of punches all aimed for face and vitals. Okita, however, was still able to keep up with her speed and counter her power. The mocking look on his face didn’t budge even for a second.

Then his eyes flashed. From the way his body tensed, Kagura realized he was finally changing on to the offensive. Kagura saw his intention in his eyes and the direction of his upcoming attack in his feet but neither of those helped her. She was already too late and couldn’t dodge when Okita tackled her to the ground. He pinned her under his weight and held both her wrists tightly on the ground.

“Where’s your strength, China? Has somebody stolen those powers of yours?”

Kagura took one more look of his annoying face and spat him right on the cheek. Okita’s eyes widened in surprise and his uninterested exterior broke for a blink of an eye. After that brief second, he got hold of himself again, started laughing – not in a happy way but with a taunting tone – and wiped the dripping saliva from his cheek. Then he absentmindedly brushed his hand to Kagura’s shirt.

Kagura tried to struggle herself free but Okita’s grip was tight. As she realized how futile her struggles were, tears of anger were rising to the corners of her eyes. All the humiliation, all the fury inside her, was about to burst but there was no release. Kagura’s mind was cloudy and her vision fuzzy. Okita’s weight pressed her against the cold ground. She heard her own heartbeat clearly and suddenly she realized she could distinguish a second heartbeat as well. She wasn’t sure whether she felt Okita’s pulse in his palms that were pressed against her hands or if she saw the pulse in the veins of his neck. She just knew there was another heart beating. She could hear the blood in his veins – _no_ – she could almost smell it. Maybe she had scratched him enough to draw some blood. Kagura inhaled deeply trying to catch the fickle scent in the air. _If I just had a knife, I could easily get this bastard bleeding..._

Kagura shot her eyes open and tried to shake the thought from her mind. _No! No bleeding! No knives!_ She didn’t want to see anyone bleeding. She just wanted to give him a good, old-fashioned beating. No blood, just a fair fight. Kagura tried to calm her breath. Even if the thoughts in her head were nothing new to her, she was still shocked when she was caught in them like this. She inhaled again, this time trying to forget the scent of blood that was lingering around them. She tried to take a new, calmer look on her situation.

She was tightly pinned under the Sadist on the ground and there was very little chance for her to give him a good beating right now. Kagura hated to admit it, but Okita seemed to be winning. Frankly, spitting him in the face had been the only thing she had been able to do.

“Seriously, China, you’re in a bad shape.” Okita’s tone was getting more serious and some actual concern was visible in his eyes.

Kagura stayed silent. There was nothing she could say. She was ashamed and surprised by her complete loss, too.

“You should train more.”

Kagura blinked her eyes twice in the silence before she finally broke. “How can I train, when Gin-chan is forbidding every hint of fighting for me? How am I supposed to train with that, huh? And what should I do with my skills? Sit home, watch TV and stuff my face with sweets?” She looked at Okita with a challenge in her eyes. “I’m not allowed to do anything anymore! I can’t be useful in any way. Gin-chan doesn’t take me on jobs anymore. All my abilities that were supposed to be useful…” Kagura fell silent. Saying so much, so suddenly was just as big of a surprise to her as it was to Okita.

He was measuring her with his eyes in a way that made her feel very intimidated. “Train with me,” he finally said. “I can keep you focused and your bull-like strength will give me enough entertainment.”

“But Gin-chan—“

“Are you really gonna let Danna decide what you’ll do with your life?” Okita asked, challenging her with his eyes. “You’re practically an adult already, China. If you want to train with me, Danna should respect that.”

Kagura stared at him in astonishment. Was the Sadist actually standing up for her? Was the Sadist, who had been mocking her just minutes ago, actually now saying that he wanted to train her? Kagura was dumbfounded by the drastic change of events. She was about to speak up when Okita continued.

“Before you say anything, I have conditions. If I train you, I need you to remember my position in the Shinsengumi. I can’t get involved in anything shady. Keep away from any dubious Yorozuya jobs.”

Kagura’s mind was blurry. Adrenalin was still kicking in although the fight was already over. Moreover, she started to pay more attention to the proximity of Okita’s body and his weight on top of her. She felt his strength as he kept pinning her to the ground. The whole situation… It felt intimate and strange.

“I just need to be sure of you, China. Be a good girl for me and say yes, would you?” Okita’s gave her a sly look that forced her to avert her eyes. Was she blushing?

“Ye- Yes?” Kagura said shakily and nodded her head slightly. Okita rewarded her with a smile – a sincere smile that was very unusual sight on his face. Almost as if he was relieved somehow, relieved that she was agreeing to this. Kagura’s head was spinning. What on earth was going on? Was this really the same person she had been fighting just a moment ago? The Sadist who mocked her abilities and powers and basically everything in her? _Why I’m suddenly so confused? Why is it so difficult to say anything?_

“Can you now let me go?” she whispered in a voice that was not her own. Okita jumped up and helped her up from the ground. Kagura shook the leaves and the grass off her clothes and turned back to Okita, who was still quietly observing her. “What happens now?” She sounded nothing like her usual hefty presence.

“Meet me tomorrow here and we’ll train. We’ll train every day from now on.”

 _Every day? That is a lot of time to spend with the Sadist_ , she thought. Then she realized the whole beauty of the promise and a blissful smile spread across her face. This meant she was going to get to fight every day. Her earlier humiliation was forgotten almost instantly. Even if she had to fight Okita every day it was thousand times better than not being able to fight at all. The fact that she would be able to train and fight like she wanted overruled everything else. It was truly a wonderful promise.

On her way back home, Kagura was once again the little girl she had been years ago. She jumped from a puddle to another and chased frightened cats who had been misfortunate enough to stumble upon her path. When she reached home, she greeted Gintoki with a cheerful hello that left the samurai staring at her with his mouth open.

 

#

 

“So you train her.”

“China told you?”

“No, she was just… different.”

“Different?”

“Happy.”

The two men sat in silence. Okita was binding and cleaning his wounds. Without having a shirt on, Gintoki could easily see big bruises around Okita’s rib cage.

“You know, Danna, she gave me quite a beating.”

Both men chuckled.

“You should be careful, Souichirou-kun. She’s out for blood, you know.”

“It’s Sougo. And I know. For a moment, when I saw the rage in her eyes, I was sure I had made a huge mistake promising to fight her. She was like an animal.”

“I know. I’ve seen it thousands of times,” Gintoki sighed. He was really much more tired than he let people realize. Seeing Kagura like this… It hadn’t been easy to him.

“But you know, even though she gave me some darn good hits, it was easy to win her. It was like her mind wasn’t in it at all. Just rage. She was stronger than ever but lacked all the insight.” Okita was now wrapping his shins in bandages. “I was able to see right through all her moves and attacks.”

“I think it’s the hormones. She’s like any teenager; except her mood swings are slightly more extreme and the usual teenager lust for sex is replaced by her Yato lust for killing. Her hormones are making her unfocused. She has lost her clarity in fights.”

“Just like any teenager…” Okita said and shook his head with an incredulous expression on his face.

He motioned Gintoki to check a sore spot in his back and Gintoki saw a small wound. It was really just a scratch but it was surrounded with plenty of dried blood. He took the wet cloth and rinsed of the blood.

“Do you think this all will pass?” Okita asked. “You know, the same way teenagers usually turn back to reasonably human beings after a few years of angsting and terrorizing their surroundings?”

“I most certainly hope so. There is no way we can restrain her forever.”

“Yeah… I hope we can keep this up long enough. Keep her distracted with the training… Ease it a little bit for her.” Okita fell silent and stared at the floor of his dim apartment.

Gintoki was silent as well. He thanked the young Shinsengumi officer in his mind for taking this job. Asking Okita’s help had been literally the last thing that had come to his mind and it wasn’t a small favor to ask. It was a huge one really. So big that Gintoki had no idea how he could ever be able to pay back.

“You know…” Gintoki started. “I actually even asked Kagura’s father if there was anything he could do to help.”

Okita looked surprised. “Her father? Umibouzu?”

“Yes, we have an emergency contact number, and when the first incident happened… Well, it was an emergency.” Gintoki shuddered as the ugly night returned to his mind. They had seen for the first time what Kagura was capable of when she lost her control.

“But Umibouzu… he wasn’t really useful.” Gintoki remembered how empty and hopeless the conversation with Umibouzu had left him. “He confirmed that it’s common for Yato kids to start their careers seriously when they hit puberty. Supposedly for them it’s quite enjoyable time really. Kids growing up, training by slaughtering aliens on battlefields, attempting to kill their parents to prove their strength… You know, all that fun stuff teenagers are supposed to do.” Gintoki rolled his eyes. “Why can’t Kagura just be interested in boys and alcohol? I would happily welcome her home after a regular boozy night…”

“Well, I guess we all knew this day might come,” Okita said quietly.

Gintoki pondered the words for a moment and realized they weren’t true. Not for him, anyway. He hadn’t really harbored any kinds of thoughts about Kagura growing up nor had he stopped to consider what it might mean. Somehow he had gladly let himself believe that Kagura would always be the little girl who had crashed in with him years ago. Growing up wasn’t part of the deal.

Okita stood up and walked to the bathroom. “I wonder if I can take this every day,” he chuckled when he saw his image in the mirror, all wrapped up in bandages.

“Maybe you should consider some other training forms instead of taking her rage head on every day? Like meditating,” Gintoki suggested.

“I definitely should…” Okita said and smiled.

There was a long silence before Okita spoke again.

“Umm, Danna…”

Gintoki looked up and noticed that Okita’s expression had turned strange. He couldn’t quite say what it was that he saw in the younger man’s eyes. Embarrassment? Worry?

Okita struggled to find words. “Umm… I think I might have led her on today a little. You know…” He chose not to look Gintoki in the eyes. “You know, I sort of had to… I had to manipulate her a little if I wanted her to agree with the training.”

Gintoki raised one eyebrow. He wasn’t quite sure which surprised him most: The fact Okita had used his charms to manipulate the girl, the fact that he felt obliged to tell him, or the fact that he was clearly embarrassed by the whole thing. Especially the way Okita seemed to be struggling was interesting.

“Well, to say the truth, I might have anticipated something like this when I asked your help,” he finally said.

It was Okita’s turn to look surprised.

“Well, Souichirou-kun… Kagura has always been fond of you. I was hoping that she would listen to you even if she’s not listening to me anymore. I’m the father now, you know. The annoying one. Right now, you stand a much better chance.”

Okita didn’t say anything.

Gintoki rose up to leave. He walked to the door and glanced once more back to Okita. “Sougo… Just try not to hurt her too much.”


	3. Picking your Nose is not Very Sexy

“China, concentrate!”

“I am concentrating, you idiot Sadist.”

“Try to calm yourself down.”

“It’s not easy when I have to listen to your annoying voice all the time!”

Okita followed Kagura’s movements as she furiously launched attacks at him. She was impulsive and although she was fast to a regular eye, Okita’s trained eyes saw the clumsiness in her moves. _You can’t win like this, China… Not now, not ever_. It was always the same.

When they started, they started out slowly and Okita enjoyed the sparring as their bodies were warming up. Kagura concentrated hard and time to time Okita could see slight progress in the way she moved and in the way she read his moves. The bond they shared, the familiarity and easiness they felt when they sparred with each other, made these moments comfortable. Sparring with a familiar partner was always pleasant and when Kagura was controlling herself, she was an excellent partner. However, Kagura didn’t seem to be able to accept any signs of disadvantage. Whenever Okita was dominating their fight, Kagura would get annoyed and irritated. To be even slightly on the losing side seemed to drive her off the rails and it was a tailspin with no return.

Okita sighed. Why was it so god damn difficult for Kagura not to lose her head? Training with her was practically walking on a trapeze without ladders – he fell down from the heights if he made a single wrong move and there was no way of climbing back. In the end, their training always degenerated to Kagura slashing her attacks at him blindly and it was not something Okita could enjoy. Okita had even gone as far as to drop most of his mocking manners – it wasn’t easy, by the way – and he really tried to help her keeping her head together whenever they trained. _Why can’t there be some kind of undo button to lift her back on rails again?_

 _Dammit!_ Okita cursed in his mind when he saw Kagura flying towards him with a speed and power that were on par with a small meteorite. He ducked to dodge but he knew he was too late. He felt the stinging pain in his jaw and the taste of blood filled his mouth. Spitting blood on the ground, he motioned Kagura to stop. _I’m gonna be dead someday if I’m going to keep on spacing out like this,_ he scolded himself as he straightened up.

“What a monstrous power you have,” Okita sighed and a triumphant smile spread across Kagura’s face. “…only if you could use it…” Okita concluded his thought without looking at Kagura.

“Hah, I think I used it pretty well.” She said and eyed Okita’s swelling jaw

The way Kagura enjoyed smashing his face annoyed him. “We are training, China. You aren’t supposed to beat me to death all the time. You are supposed to listen to me and do what I tell you to do.” Okita sat down on the ground and rested his back on a large tree that was hovering over them. The day in the park was cold and gray but both of them were sweaty and hot.

“You’re not a very good teacher then,” Kagura said and gave angry looks towards him.

Okita lowered his head and took a couple of deep breaths. Training with Kagura took every bit of self-restraint he could muster. Her development was non-existent and she was as bad-mouthed as ever. She didn’t seem to have any idea of how bad her behavior was sometimes. Okita knew that her anger was by no means limited to him. When she wasn’t having one of her better moments, she was angry with everyone and everything around her. Yesterday she had gotten really annoyed with Sadaharu and crammed the giant dog into her closet. Confused Sadaharu didn’t know how to get out on his own and had been stuck in the closet until Gintoki noticed how the walls were ominously bulging out.

Okita sighed and looked at the girl who was now lying on the ground. Kagura’s eyes were following the red and yellow leaves as wind ripped them from the branches and sent them floating towards the ground. For a moment Okita couldn’t believe his eyes. Kagura looked calm and sweet, almost cute and innocent. The girl in front of him was a completely different person from the monster that had smashed his jaw just seconds ago.        

Okita often cursed himself for getting involved in all this but every time that happened he also remembered the importance of the whole matter. He remembered how Gintoki had come to him. Someone might say that adopting a Yato girl as a daughter was not one of Gintoki’s brightest ideas, but then again, maybe it was Kagura, who had adopted Gintoki as her father or big brother. And Kagura was a friend. Maybe they hadn’t been so close for some time now, but he remembered the old times. She was still a friend and Okita was a man who helped his friends – the very few of them – if they were in trouble.

A smile crept on Okita’s lips when he remembered how naïve Kagura had been only two or three years ago. Crazy and annoying, of course, but also cute and innocent. Just like she still was sometimes, when she thought she was alone. Okita had loved teasing her – very few people in the world were as susceptible to teasing as Kagura. Little Kagura and her innocent crush on him. Frankly, he had been quite flattered and happy with himself when he had noticed how fond of him Kagura had been. Maybe if he hadn’t been a government official, and maybe if one of the most fearsome samurais in whole Edo hadn’t been so protective of her, maybe if their age difference had been few years less… Okita remembered well enough how he had played with the idea at times, always discarding his thoughts before he got too carried away.

Okita eyed the girl and wondered whether she was still as innocent when it came to men as she had been years ago. From the outside, she hadn’t changed so much really. She had grown a bit taller and she had included more variation in her wardrobe, although it was still mostly red. Her hair was still usually tight up in two knots but for some reason the hair style that had looked childish and cute in the past looked a bit sexy on a 17-year-old. Okita pondered the thought for a moment. _Sexy?_ It wasn’t really the word most people would use to describe Kagura. She had maintained her boyish figure and even though she had developed small tits, her rough overall behavior usually took away attention from anything remotely sexy in her.

Just when Okita’s thoughts had started to circulate around sexiness, he noticed that Kagura had suddenly become very interested in picking her nose. _Touché._

“Hey Sadist, are we still gonna train?” Kagura asked in her childish manner. How perfectly agreeable she looked lying there, relaxing in the autumn sun. How deceiving were one’s eyes.

“Do you want to?”

“Nah, I’m out of energy and I’m hungry. Feed me, Sadist.” Kagura rolled onto her stomach and stared him with her ocean blue eyes. If Okita didn’t know her better, he would have thought she was flirting with him.

“I’m not getting paid enough to feed you and I’m already volunteering with the training. Go to Danna. He’s the one with the food responsibility.” Okita watched as Kagura’s face reflected her disappointment and she acquired the weary look of a teenager. Okita didn’t like that weary look. It was so far from the happy girl he had known, so far from the girl who was always so full of life and surprises. The dull look did not fit that face.

Okita sighed and smiled. “Oh what the heck, my financial situation can always take one tornado.”

“Really? Thanks Sadist!” Smile on Kagura’s face had returned so easily.

 _Wow Sougo, you’re buying her food just to see her smile?_ Okita thought bitterly. He rose up to follow Kagura who was already hurrying towards a nearby ramen stand. Okita wondered, why he had agreed to buy her food in the first place. Most of the time he was just annoyed by her. He couldn’t really enjoy their training – not when he had to walk on eggshells all the time. If there wasn’t their old friendship, if Danna hadn’t asked him… He didn’t think he would have gone on with all this. Yet, there were times when he didn’t regret his decision. _Times like this, for example,_ he thought when he followed the laughing and avid girl towards the ramen stand.

 

#

 

“Oh, Kagura-chan!” Gintoki greeted with a smile on his face when Kagura returned home. “You came just in time to meet the customer.”

Kagura glanced at the room and saw an old lady who was sitting on their couch. “Let me guess, it’s a cat chase?”

Most of the cases that Gintoki had deemed safe enough for Kagura these days had been cat chases.

“No, no, no, no, noo…” Gintoki said fast, wagging his finger in the air. “It’s something much more interesting! It’s a goose chase!”

Kagura raised her eyebrows at him, but tried to conceal most of her annoyance because of the customer. “Oh, a goose chase? That’s a first,” she commented politely and forced a smile on her face.

“Yes, yes… Exactly! This might be something really interesting. Have you heard that geese can lay golden eggs?” Gintoki beamed.

“Ehem...” the customer tried to butt in. “This is just an ordinary goose…”

“Maybe we can get one of those golden eggs if we find the goose, right granny?” Gintoki continued inside his fantasies, ignoring the customer completely.

Kagura exchanged looks with Shinpachi who had appeared from the kitchen serving tea. Neither of them shared Gintoki’s enthusiasm.

The granny eyed Gintoki suspiciously, probably thinking whether it would be such a good idea after all to hire the man. She sighed, as if to decide that she didn’t have much choice. “I just wish you can find her. Even though she won’t lay any golden eggs, James is very dear to me.”

“She? James?” Shinpachi asked with a confused look on his face. “Why is _she_ called James?”

“I named him after my late husband, James,” the granny answered.

Shinpachi’s eyes brightened behind his glasses. “Oh, granny had an American husband!”

“No, no.. He was British. He was a secret agent,” the granny said dreamily.

“British secret agent James?” Shinpachi repeated and glanced at Kagura with an irritated look on his face. “Granny doesn’t mean that British secret agent, that James Bond, doesn’t she?”

“Oh, you know him?” the granny said with bright eyes. “It must be the movies… Everybody seems to know him after all those movies he did…” Her eyes were dreamy as she lived on with her fantasies. “Anyway, dear kids, this goose is all I have left from him. It is very important that you find her.”

“Yes, of course ma’am…” Shinpachi said shaking his head.

“Of course we will find this golden goose! Don’t you worry, granny!” Gintoki exclaimed standing on his office chair one leg on the table.

“How is the goose golden now!?!” Shinpachi shouted at him.

“It’s no use, Shinpachi... They both live in their own worlds and I don’t think those worlds have any common ground with either each other or the reality,” Kagura said and gave him a flat-eyed look. “Let’s just go and find that goose…”

Wind slashed against their faces as Kagura and Shinpachi started roaming the streets in search for the missing goose. Gintoki was still brimming with ideas of golden eggs, geese and all sorts of other golden artifacts.

“Which James Bond do you think granny is in love with?” Shinpachi asked as they walked.

“Maybe Roger Moore… I think he’s a granny-kind-of James Bond,” Kagura pondered.

“Right, granny wouldn’t fall in love with any of the modern James Bonds. Grannies are traditional.”

“Uhuh…”

In their usual Yorozuya style they spend the afternoon roaming the streets and hoping that the goose in question would suddenly appear in front of them. After all, that’s how they managed most of their jobs. Gintoki had finally started to consider the possibility that the goose in question did not actually lay golden eggs in real life and was starting to lose his interest in the mission.

Kagura kicked a metal can that hit a nearby dumpster and received angry growls from the neighborhood cats. “I wonder where that secret agent is hiding.”

“I wonder if it even exists…” Shinpachi moaned. “How do we know it wasn’t an imaginary goose named after an imaginary husband in the first place?”

“Well, if you’re supposed to be a secret agent, it’s pretty obvious that you don’t want to be seen in plain daylight. Especially if you’ve just barely escaped from a crazy granny,” Gintoki tried to empathize with the goose.

They watched as a police car slowly slid next to them.

“Were my ears deceiving me or is Yorozuya actually having an interesting job?” Okita asked from the opened window. “Searching for a secret agent, are you?”

“And what if we are?” Kagura challenged immediately.

“Sounds like a question of national security to me,” Okita said with a smirk on his face. “What do you think, Hijikata-san?” he asked the annoyed vice-chief who was steering their vehicle.

Hijikata showed absolutely no interest to the conversation nor did he bother answering.

“So, what kind of secret agent are you exactly looking for?”

“A very dangerous and nasty one!” Kagura snapped at once. “A real threat to everyone you know. Very important mission.”

“A real threat? Well, waddaya know… Even Yorozuya can get real jobs from time to time.”

Shinpachi followed the discussion with a tired look on his face. “It is a secret agent _goose,”_ he finally said.

“??”

“A goose that has been named after James Bond,” he completed the explanation.

Okita blurted into laughter. “Well that would make sense! A goose chase is much more like you,” he said laughing.

Kagura felt how her face reddened with both embarrassment and anger. _Isn’t it enough that I have to stand his stupid face every day in the training? Does he really have to come and mock me when I’m on a job? Does he really have to mock Yorozuya like that?_ Kagura had always been sensitive if someone insulted her but she was thousand times more sensitive if someone insulted Yorozuya. It just wasn’t cool to badmouth her family, her life.

Okita was still bellowing with laughter, tears in his eyes. “Sorry China... Sorry,” he tried to say. “You’re just too funny. Secret agent goose… It’s just too funny!”

“I saw a goose a while back,” Hijikata suddenly said and took a long drag on his cigarette. “It had a sign on it that read James Bond.”

Everybody stated at him.

“It was maybe three blocks down the road,” he said knocking his head to the direction they came from.

“Thanks Mayo-lover!” Kagura sang as the three of them ran down the street.

The police car stood silent for a moment before Okita spoke.

“You really saw a goose with a sign reading James Bond on it?” he asked.

“Sure I did,” Hijikata answered. “I just thought I was hallucinating at the time.”

Kagura, Shinpachi and Gintoki rushed down the road when they saw a large group of people pointing and laughing at something. They pushed through the crowd and finally saw what Hijikata had been taking about. A white goose standing on the middle of the road truly had a sign taped on its back. James Bond’ read the sign.

After they had found the goose, catching it was easy due to all the practice they had had with cats. After all, geese were pretty slow and stupid.

“Just one little golden egg, pleeeaaase!” Gintoki coaxed the goose as they walked home.

Neither Shinpachi nor Kagura felt like commenting the action in any way.

The image of Okita laughing at her and their stupid job returned to Kagura’s mind. _The Sadist is such a prick, real idiot, stupid idiot,_ her mind kept telling. Still she couldn’t get rid of his image in her head. That annoying smile, that stupid laughter. _Why did I have to blush like that?_ Kagura asked herself furiously. She hated to give any more reasons to the Sadist to mock her.

Kagura didn’t really like the fact that she was so easily agitated by Okita. When they fought, when they saw each other otherwise, she was never able to keep her calm for a long time. True, she didn’t keep her calm with anyone else either, for that matter, but something in Okita definitely rubbed her the wrong way. When she was with Okita, she had the strangest sensation that he was able to see right through her. Like he could see everything in her – all her faults and all her weaknesses. Getting insanely mad about it every time the sensation struck her was maybe a very primitive reaction but to Kagura it felt right. The way Okita seemed to read her… Anyone would be annoyed as hell with that!

 _Stupid Sadist,_ she thought bitterly. _Stupid Sadist, why am I losing to you every day we train?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really apprecate all feedbak and comments!


	4. Sometimes Wonderful Dreams can be Scary

“Mr. Raindrop, fallin' away from me now... Mr. Raindrop, fallin' away from me now…” Gintoki hummed happily in the kitchen while chopping onions and mushrooms.

Kagura lingered around the kitchen door drooling together with Sadaharu who was also waiting for his dinner. Shinpachi had a pair of headphones on and presumably his favorite album filling his ears. He was supposed to be cleaning the apartment, but majority of his time seemed to go to pretending that the broom in his hands was a guitar and that people around him would actually enjoy hearing his singing voice as he bellowed together with the inaudible music. Gintoki and Kagura didn’t mind though. It had been ages since the atmosphere in the apartment had been so relaxed.

“Kagura-chan, could you pass me salt.” Gintoki asked and wiped his hands to his pink apron.

“Uhuh,” Kagura answered and quickly threw the salt towards him. She wasn’t usually helpful when it came to many things, but when Gin-chan was cooking her dinner, she would be always on her best behavior. Shinpachi started again his bellowing when the song in his ears reached the chorus. Kagura and Gintoki exchanged a fast glance and burst into laughter. Sadaharu tried to cover his ears with his paws. It really was a good day at the Yorozuya office.

Gintoki glanced at Kagura from the corner of his eye. She looked absent-minded as usual, scratching Sadaharu behind the ear. She seemed to spend a lot of time lost in her thoughts nowadays and Gintoki had a pretty good idea what was occupying her mind. Not a day passed anymore without Kagura babbling on about the annoying training that she had to go through and criticizing Okita’s faults. Supposedly his training methods sucked and Kagura would have preferred to be anywhere else in the world than training with him. She made a clear point of not enjoying her training, yet she couldn’t deceive Gintoki. Maybe Kagura was annoyed by Okita, but it was definitely not all there was to it. She would choose her clothes for her training sessions carefully – something that was both very unlike her and also idiotic since her clothes were always wrecked in the fights. She would come home from her trainings happily humming and greet them with a smile on her face – something that Gintoki had learned to appreciate after months of unsmiling and wordless hellos they had experienced before Okita’s involvement. Even if Gintoki’s own love life basically consisted of series of mistakes that he usually didn’t remember the next morning, he knew what was going on with Kagura. She was definitely smitten with that tax robber.

 _Is it a good or a bad thing?_ Gintoki pondered in his mind. True, he had been expecting something like this would happen when he had first asked Okita’s help, but now… He wasn’t sure anymore. Of course, he enjoyed the easy times Yorozuya was having. For the past few weeks, Kagura had been practically an angel. Being able to let of some steam every day with Okita seemed to be enough to keep her satisfied. Gintoki had to admit he slept his nights better now. But how long was this all going to last? Gintoki had a nasty feeling that they were building a house of cards on a slippery slope. A delicate system of security and balance was built on a crush of a teenager? He didn’t like it but there was nothing he could do about it. In the end, he had been the one to suggest the arrangement. It had been his last resort.

“Gin-chaaan, what are you standing there? Is the food ready?” Kagura moaned and snapped Gintoki out of his thoughts.

“Yes, it’s just about to be ready,” he said and stared at the brownish pot with pork and the cheapest vegetables Shinpachi had been able to find in the grocery store. Thank God his audience wasn’t too particular about what they ate. Shinpachi was ecstatic whenever he got anything else than Otae’s tamagoyaki and Kagura could’ve ingested rocks.

“Shinpachi, don’t try to steal all the meats!” Kagura cried out when they were sitting down to the table.

“Whaddaya mean--?? I’m not even close to the table yet!”

“Oh, I guess it’s me then who’s trying to steal all the meats,” Kagura concluded and attacked the pot with her chopsticks.

“Manners! Where are your manners…” Shinpachi whined but everything he said fell on deaf ears.

Gintoki, after promptly securing his own fair share of the meal, followed their exchange. _Just like the old days_ , he thought. All of us gathered here, fighting over pieces of meat and laughing together. Shinpachi and Kagura acting all brotherly and sisterly again, quarreling about manners and food. Gintoki sighed. He missed the simple days of their past. He missed that little girl he had learned to live with after she had moved herself into his apartment. He missed her childish honesty and outspokenness that had eventually morphed into sulkiness and weariness of a teenager. More than anything Gintoki missed the clear resolution and sense of right and wrong that Kagura had had as a child. What had changed? What had crumbled her initial resolve? Gintoki knew something was going on in Kagura’s body and mind, but he had no means of finding out what. Something was eating her, faltering her resolve, pushing her towards violence. What was it?

A feeling of inadequacy took over him. He wished to understand, but he couldn’t change the facts. Kagura was right when she yelled at him saying how he could never understand what was happening to her. Kagura was a Yato. He couldn’t understand.

 

#

 

_Kagura was standing on a battlefield. Trees around her were struggling in the cold gale. It was very dark, but she could see her prey. The aliens were faceless, just animals. She was the hunter. Her surroundings reeked with the fear of the yellow tailed beasts she was trailing. They sensed her. They sensed her presence. They sensed the presence of the fastest hunter in our galaxy and they were right to be afraid._

_Kagura stalked in the high grass. She was keeping her head down, but she knew her prey could soon smell her. She had to be fast. She could easily take down any one of the beasts, but this was a game. This was a game and to beat her last record, she now had to take down five of the beasts in one smooth attack. She felt the silkiness of cold metal when she reached for the two small kunai she had tucked under her belt. Yato don’t usually fight with kunai, she noticed herself thinking, but a machine gun umbrella was really not the most elegant weapon for hunting._

_Kagura stilled. She was now one leap away from a flock of seven. Out of seven, she can surely get at least five. She waited for a one silent moment. The wind blew hard, swirling her hair and tugging her clothes. Nature around her smelled fresh and stormy. Kagura took one last breath and she was in the air. Her pounce for the beasts was long and fast. She landed in the middle of the seven aliens that yet had to recognize her sudden presence. Then she started to dance. Her kunai slashed necks with ease as her body swirled fiercely. The aliens stood no chance against her. Their movement seemed slow-motioned compared to her speed. One, two, three clean slashes, a jump to the neck of a fourth alien and a slash. A strong leap forwards to catch her final prey – no final two preys. Spinning in the air Kagura flung herself between the two beasts and reached for two more carotid arteries. Blood sprayed on her face as she used her last momentum to get her feet back to the ground. Her smooth landing was accompanied by the fading sound of the seventh alien escaping and her own cry of victory. Kagura inhaled the intoxicating smell of her fresh kills and smiled joyously._

_A knocking sound infiltrated the universe. The storm clouds and the trees were all jiggling in the rhythm of the knocks. Then she heard a familiar voice coming from the heaven: “Kagura-chan? Are you okay?”_

Kagura shot her eyes open. She was panting and her pajamas were dripping wet with sweat. She opened the closet door and poked her head out. “What is it, Gin-chan?”

“You woke me up. You were screaming.” There was a wrinkle in Gintoki’s forehead and it made him look worried.

“I just had a bad dream, that’s all,” she lied. Truthfully, her dream hadn’t been bad at all.

“Okay... Don’t wake me up again, then. You know how difficult it is for Gin-chan to fall asleep in the middle of the night.”

Kagura snorted. Only few seconds after Gintoki had shut his door, Kagura was able to hear him snoring again. Kagura was the one who couldn’t fall asleep straightaway. She could hear her hot blood humming in her ears and feel the adrenaline surging in her veins. Her nose remembered the smell of blood in the battlefield. In the darkness of her closet, her mind took her back to the battlefield. She knew every inch of the field, she could easily pinpoint the location of each tree – all eighty seven of them. She remembered how the field felt on sunny days and on windy days, how it smelled after rain, and how the dry ground cracked under her toes when the rain was absent. She had visited the field tens of times, sometimes hunting the yellow tailed beasts she had today, sometimes other strange aliens or memories of people she had confronted during her years on Earth. And it wasn’t always the field – sometimes her dreams took her to strange cities that were on peculiar planets. She had battled flying bee-like aliens on a planet with strange, gummy plants and flowers, and one time she was taken to a place so ugly and stinking that she shuddered every time she remember the dream. Among the strange places there were also familiar ones. She had roamed the streets of Edo beheading amantos and humans alike, and sometimes, although very seldom, she found herself back on that rainy planet she had left behind many years ago.

Kagura shuddered. Her pajamas were now cold with sweat. After a dream like this, Kagura was always confused. It was sometimes difficult for her to actually tell apart the dreams and reality – especially lying alone in the dark like this. Worst were the dreams that took place in Edo. After she had had the first one of those, she had been confused for days, unsure whether she had actually been dreaming. And the dreams… They were so real! In her dreams she was alive, in her dreams she was happy. In those dreams she was living like her instincts told her to.

When Kagura had experienced such a dream for the first time, she had been frightened and shocked. The dream surprised her and confused her, and she had voluntarily skipped fighting for weeks. She tried to push the dream away from her mind, forget every shred of joy it had brought her. At that time, she had been afraid of the next dream and the next after that. She had dreaded the moment she closed her eyes, unable to relax during the days or nights. Something in her body, in her mind, had been changing and she had tried to fight the change, hide it and forget it. But the change was not something she could forget. The dreams had come and went as they liked and little by little she had grown accustomed to this new aspect in her life. She had grown to like those dreams, enjoy the power they gave her, anticipate the blissful moments. Yet, even now she tried to forget that those blissful moments were the moments of kills. She knew she couldn’t get rid of the dreams and she had accepted them. Her body yearned for the act of killing but the idea of killing was still poison to her mind.

 _I wish I could make Gin-chan understand,_ Kagura thought. _I wish he would remember that it’s still me – that in the end it’s still me._ A sharp memory pierced through her mind. Gin-chan’s voice…

 

> _“You can’t just go around killing people as you like.”_
> 
> _“Killing people as I like? When the hell have I ‘killed people as I liked’?_
> 
> _“The last job—“_
> 
> _“Don’t mention it. The guy was coming at me! It wasn’t me who attacked!”_
> 
> _“But it was you who didn’t stop after the enemy was already down…”_

The voices in Kagura’s head died slowly. The things she had said… Why had she said all those things? Why couldn’t she admit to Gintoki how terrified she actually was? Terrified of herself… But it was something Kagura was able to admit to herself only in the darkness of her closet. And it wasn’t like Gin-chan was making it easy either. He kept nagging constantly at her and forbid fighting. He limited her life and freedom! He didn’t trust her anymore, Kagura knew it. She had lost his trust the moment she had lost her control on that one unlucky night.

The memory of that night gave Kagura shivers. It had happened five months ago when they had been on an unusually difficult job; what was supposed to be locating a kidnapped daughter had morphed into a gang war and left the three of them trapped in the middle of the fight. Every one of them had had their hands full of trouble and eventually Kagura had found herself caught between two Dakini warriors, Gintoki and Shinpachi nowhere to be seen. The green monsters had pressed on and she had been outpowered, even afraid. The moment her left arm had broken, Kagura had been certain of her loss. She had been completely overpowered or so she had thought… The rest of the night had been one of her dreams – battling on the streets of Edo with amantos and humans alike, enjoying the blissful moments of the kills and feeling the life in her veins. She just hadn’t woken up from her bed as usual. Instead, she had woken up when Gintoki and Shinpachi shouted her name and Gintoki was shaking her by her shoulders. When she had opened her eyes she had seen the fear in their eyes. They had been afraid for her – no, they had been afraid of her.

Kagura couldn’t forget the look in Gintoki’s eyes and god knows she had tried. Gintoki had looked at her like she was a complete stranger. He had been afraid of her and angry at her and that look alone had put miles of distance between them. Something had been broken that night. Something had been broken and after that night the trust between them had disappeared.

Kagura lay in the dark closet listening to her own heartbeat. Her body was still warm after the fight in her dream. The effects lasted long, they always lasted. Kagura sensed how her body pulsated in the rhythm of her heart. Warmness had taken over her stomach and thighs and Kagura placed her hand on her panties. This was familiar as well. The warmness between her thighs and the pressing urge to touch herself. In the dreams she battled and when she woke up she was all hot and excited. The battles made her excited. She knew she had to give herself a release – it was the only way she could fall asleep again. She rubbed herself on top of her panties and everything was over soon. It never took long after one of these dreams.

Tonight there was, however, something she didn’t quite expect. Just before the moment when the warm and tingling sensation took over her body, a familiar face had made its way to her mind. A familiar face, sandy brown bangs and captivating eyes with strange irises tainted with red.


	5. Love can be Learned from Television

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks for everyone who has been giving support. I've been really motivated with this story and I hope you continue to enjoy it. :) All feedback is, as always, highly valued!

“Hey Sadist… What do you think that cloud looks like?”

Okita opened his eyes lazily and glanced at Kagura to see which cloud she was talking about. He was lying in the overgrown lawn on his back sucking a long grass between his teeth. Kagura lay astride on Sadaharu’s back. Okita tried to keep his eyes off the legs that her skirt revealed, but Kagura’s suggestive posture gave him considerable difficulties. The girl still didn’t seem to have any idea that her body had indeed grown up even though her mind couldn’t always keep up with it.

“What cloud?” he finally asked.

“That one!” Kagura pointed at the sky enthusiastically. “Don’t you think it looks just like Sadaharu wagging his tail happily after disemboweling a nasty amanto?”

Okita raised his eyebrow and chuckled. “I was thinking something more like Hijikata’s head after accidentally crashing with my bazooka rocket.”

They were spending a post-training afternoon in the park and lay there silently watching the clouds.

“Nah Sadist… Do you ever think about what you will do when you grow up?” Kagura asked in her childish tone.

“Don’t you think I have grown up already?” Okita chuckled.

“I mean, when you grow up to be all serious and stuff. Are you gonna rob tax payers money for the rest of your life in Shinsengumi?”

“Who knows…”

“Don’t you have any hopes for the future?”

“I guess I could use a promotion… Become the vice chief, maybe even the chief someday if Kondo-san wants to retire,” Okita said dreamily. “But I rarely think about it, except for replacing Hijikata as the vice chief, of course.”

“I think I want to travel,” Kagura said enthusiastically as she rolled down from Sadaharu’s back. “I could be a traveling warrior like pappy.”

“Is Earth starting to get too small for you, China?”

“I don’t know… Sometimes, maybe. Sometimes I feel I don’t belong here.”

Okita glanced at her and saw unfamiliar longing in her eyes.

Kagura sighed and lifted her gaze up to the clouds again. “Don’t you ever dream about travelling?”

“Not really.”

“You don’t think you’d like it? To see all those strange planets and travel thousands and thousands of miles in the darkness of eternal night…”

“I haven’t really thought about it. I’ve never had a chance to travel. Earth seems to be just enough for me.” It was true really. After all, Okita had lived his childhood in the countryside and moving to Edo had been a big thing to him. Edo was a big city and with all the amanto technology it was almost like a foreign planet to a small boy who had lived his life swinging a wooden sword in the forests. Traveling had never really crossed his mind. For a second, Okita’s thoughts froze. He realized he had never stopped to think of Kagura’s life before coming to Earth. What kind of strange cities had the girl seen before? What kind of places had she been to? Okita knew only some details about Kagura’s past but he had always assumed her past wasn’t a happy one. Why would a little girl travel to a faraway planet to live with strangers if she was happy?

“Would you go with me if I asked you to?” Kagura suddenly asked and turned her big blue eyes towards him.

“Go where?” Okita asked, disoriented after his thoughts.

“To travel, somewhere.”

“It depends…”

“Depends on what?”

“Whether you’d ask me nice or not,” Okita teased and was open-handedly rewarded for his efforts when Kagura childishly jumped on him. The two of them rolled around wrestling on the ground for some time, Kagura actually wrestling and Okita mainly laughing. In the end Okita found himself lying on the ground, Kagura sitting astride on his stomach and pushing his shoulders to the ground.

“Haha, I win, Sadist!” she laughed with an evil smile on her face and straightened up.

“Do you really think so?” Okita asked smirking. He scooped her waist with one hand and knocked her over to the ground. He felt her strength when her body tensed under him and concentrated on tying her hands to the ground with his weight. Kagura tried to wriggle herself free but Okita knew her efforts were futile. She might be strong but Okita had a way better technique in wrestling – especially in taking holds. He was laughing at her struggles and he could see from Kagura’s eyes that she was having just as much fun pretending to wrestle as him. _Those eyes…_ They were full of challenge, mischief and laughter and yet there was undeniable sweetness and innocence in them. Okita had been always fascinated by Kagura’s ocean blue eyes. One could easily sink into those eyes for ages.

To his surprise, Okita saw that the childish laughter and challenge were vanishing from Kagura’s eyes little by little. They were replaced by something else, some kind of unfamiliar uncertainty and sudden shyness he wasn’t used to see in those eyes. _I should get up,_ he thought hastily. _I should get up right now, laugh at our wrestling like always and call it a day._ Yet, Okita just stared at her. His brain told him that this was a line he shouldn’t cross, but even if he knew what he should do, he couldn’t tear his eyes of the sight in front of him. He was just as frozen as Kagura was under him.

Okita’s mind swirled. They were so close that he could feel Kagura’s breath on his lips and sense the shallow heaving of her chest. Having Kagura under him like this… She looked tender and small – more like a woman than ever before. Okita’s gaze lingered around her lips. Pale pink and slightly opened, they invited him to taste them. What would she taste like?

He already knew he would punish himself severely for this afterwards but that didn’t stop him. In this reality, there was only the long grass around him, the wind playing with his hair and Kagura under him, waiting to be kissed. There was no way he could stop himself right now. He lowered his head and gently pressed his mouth against her lips. Kagura stayed still – she didn’t respond but she didn’t withdraw either. He was able to distinguish the faint smell of sukonbu in her breath before he broke the contact between them. They stared at each other in silence, neither of them moving.

Maybe it was the smell of sukonbu, maybe it was the touch of their lips that woke him up from this dream, he didn’t know, but suddenly he realized what he was doing and abruptly pushed himself off the ground. His heart was beating hard and his hands were sweaty. Kagura stared at him dumbfounded and rose up slowly.

 _I shouldn’t have done that,_ Okita thought. _I should be able to restrain myself better._ He felt his hands tremble with frustration and mind his mind raced. He should say something. He should somehow try to fix the situation but what could he do to fix it? Why seeing her made her mind so hazy? _Remember how she usually is,_ he told himself and tried to calm himself down. _I need to remember… She is annoying, ill-mouthed and with her current mood swings, she has become utterly unreliable. She’s like a bomb that can explode any time. I cannot fall for a girl like that. There’s no way I can trust her - not yet._ If anything, Okita had always been a man of clear and strong resolve. Why was he faltering now?

“See you tomorrow,” he finally forced himself to say. “Same time, same place.” He didn’t glance back when he walked away from the park. He was being such a jerk right now.

 

#

 

“Gin-chan? Shin-chan? Are you home?”

Kagura’s greetings were hanging in the silent air of the empty apartment.

“I guess it’s just me and you then, Sadaharu,” she said to the large ball of fur in the corner. The only answer she got was quiet snoring. “Okay, be a jerk and snore all you want, Sadaharu. I’m perfectly fine on my own.” Kagura didn’t mind hearing her own voice in the silence.

Kagura threw herself on the couch and closed her eyes. Her way back home had been filled with one thought only and she knew what to expect when the room disappeared around her. _Okita._ His face was clear in her mind and his mocking eyes looking down on her.

Kagura was still feeling hot and flustered from the events just a moment before. In her mind she returned back to the park, to the moment when they were wrestling. To the moment when they suddenly weren’t wrestling anymore. To the moment when they were suddenly doing something entirely else. Kagura swallowed. The way Okita had looked at her, the way Okita’s body had pressed against her… She got shudders all over her body for just thinking about it. Okita’s gaze had thoroughly paralyzed her. She had been completely speechless, completely unable to do anything. Her body had become suddenly powerless and hot despite the cold weather. She had never before been affected by anyone like that and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the feeling of weakness. Okita’s presence had made her weak and feeble.

And the kiss – had it even been a kiss? It had been over so fast – the kiss… Was it her first kiss? Technically no. She had been kissed before by an annoying teenager before the teenager in question got his arm broken. But this… The tingling that still lingered on her lips suggested that this very well might have been her first kiss. _My first kiss is with the Sadist?_ she thought, confused. _The Sadist… Okita… Sougo…_ She usually didn’t call him Okita and she was sure she had never used his first name. _Sougo._ The name lingered in her mind when suddenly her head started flooding with his images, his scent, the sound of his name and the feel of his body and lips. With a single fast kiss Okita had opened the Pandora’s Box and it was all out there now.

Tons of thoughts were streaming to Kagura’s mind. _Am I in love?_ she asked herself. _How do I even know when I’m in love?_ Kagura tried to think of her favorite soap operas and women in love. _Is this how they feel? Hot and cold at the same time, shivering with something that isn’t cold, head filled with funny thoughts…_ Kagura’s heart was pounding. How could she meet Okita for their training next day? What would Okita do? Ask her out? Kagura hoped he would ask her out on a date – she had a clear idea that dates were something good, something that beautiful and popular women often went to.

She closed her eyes again and once again she saw his face. She couldalmost feel the pressure of his strong body on her skin. The moment before Okita had kissed her was clear in her mind. Kagura took a deep breath and let her imagination go wild…

_“China… You’re such a pretty sight there...” Okita’s eyes were sharp and words smooth._

_Kagura felt her chest heaving and heart racing when Okita lowered his head to smell her hair. Okita’s left hand traveled along her side. Then it reached the zipper in Kagura’s training sweater. With a smile on his lips and his eyes firmly keeping Kagura’s gaze, he slowly eased the zipper down. Kagura blushed when her small breast were revealed. Okita viewed her tits with appreciative smile on his face. Then he leaned forward and stole a kiss, ever so light, from Kagura’s lips._

_Suddenly, Okita didn’t have his uniform jacket or his shirt on anymore. Kagura examined his bared chest and beautifully shaped arms. Okita released her arms so that she could acquaint herself with his body better and Kagura raised her hands to touch his wide chest and shoulders. She ran her fingers downwards and drew the outlines of his well-defined abs. She watched as Okita shivered under the touch of her fingers._

_Then they were kissing, passionately feeling each other’s mouths. Okita’s hands were softly gripping her hair as he led her to deeper and deeper kisses…_

Kagura’s body was relaxed and heavy as the image started fading from her mind. She slowly opened her eyes again. This was the edge of her fantasy world so far. Her daydream ended with a scenario with passionate kissing for a single reason: She wasn’t quite sure what was supposed to happen next. Of course, she had an idea of what sex was. She wasn’t dumb and she had watched _a lot_ of television. There had even been an incredibly embarrassing conversation in which Gin-chan was trying to explain to her the importance of protection when having sex. The conversation had ended with confused Kagura sitting in the table with a packet of condoms in her hand and Gintoki fleeing the apartment with strained “Condoms! Use if boys!” as his last words. So Kagura definitely knew what sex was. Okay, she definitely had a quite a good idea. She just couldn’t imagine it yet. Not with the Sadist, not with anybody. She had learned from the television that sex was definitely something to look forward, but the details remained hazy. If she trusted any of her soap operas, and oh yes she trusted, sex should be an integral part of any woman’s life. It was something that people fought for. Something that would happen after the hero of the movie had slain the dragon and carried the girl back to his castle.

Kagura’s mind fled back to Okita. What would happen when she met him tomorrow? How would he act? How should she act? Kagura wished there was someone she could talk to, but all her friends were bad choices. There was no way she could reveal to any of them that she might have feelings for Okita, for that annoying Sadist who continuously mocked her and humiliated her. _Why would I even fall in love with such a jerk?_ she asked herself. _Maybe I’m just completely overreacting? Maybe nothing really happened?_

That evening Kagura was restless. She didn’t eat normally – a fact that worried both Gintoki and Shinpachi greatly – and she was completely unable to concentrate in anything around her. She just waited for the next day when she would meet Okita again.


	6. The Longer the Waiting the...

The next day came – and it went. And the day after that came and it went, but Okita made no moves. In fact, he had by no means showed that there was anything different between them. He acted like usual – a bit cooler than usual even – and seemed to be interested in Kagura only in terms of training. Training, of course, was almost impossible for Kagura during those first days after the kiss. Her concentration was worse than ever and every times their eyes met Kagura felt how she blushed and fluttered with her moves. She fought so terribly even she noticed it herself, but annoyingly Okita seemed to scold her less than usual.

Kagura waited for days and she waited for weeks and as nothing happened she grew more and more frustrated. _I’m a young, delicate girl who has fallen in love and this idiot Sadist has the nerve to neglect me!_ she fumed. Sometimes she questioned herself: Had the kiss even happened? Had she imagined the whole thing? But she was sure there was something – something that wasn’t entirely her own imagination. She would sometimes catch Okita’s gaze when he didn’t think she saw him, and his strikes when they fought – sometimes they were almost gentle.

 _Why isn’t he doing something already?_ Kagura wondered lying on the couch and watching television. _He kissed me and he should ask me out._ Kagura had pondered around the question for quite a while and she had numeral ideas in her head. Maybe the Sadist was too scared to man up and ask her out or maybe he tried to be courteous because she was still only 17 years old. Or maybe he was trying to ask her hand from pappy in secret before asking her? _That’s for marrying, stupid, not for dating,_ she scolded herself. Maybe there was a secret rule in the Shinsengumi to not ask a girl out? _Definitely not, seeing how their commander acted,_ she reminded herself. Sometimes the frightening idea of the Sadist not liking her popped into her mind, but usually she pushed the thought out of her mind as soon as she became aware of its presence. After all, she was now in love because the Sadist had kissed her thus it was just logical that the Sadist should take some responsibility.

“I’m an independent woman!” a determined female voice in the television said. “I’m an independent woman and I’m perfectly confident with asking him out!”

Kagura glanced at the TV screen and saw a young and trendy woman talking to her friends. Kagura immediately liked this new woman. Growing up with her soap operas, Kagura had always longed to be one of those classy ladies whose suitors came to their doorstep with limousines and at least twelve roses. But now when Kagura started to think about it, she could easily identify with this new lady, this new independent lady. _Strong and independent…_ Yes, Kagura could definitely identify with those qualities!

“Why should I be the one who has to wait?” she asked Sadaharu as she was walking him in the park. It was an exceptionally windy day outside and the wind tried to tear her umbrella from her hand. Apart from them, the park was deserted.

“Or are you a chauvinist, Sadaharu?” Kagura asked from the confused dog. “Do you think a girl should sit tight at home and wait for their prince to arrive with his white horse?”

Sadaharu did not answer – most likely because he was quite preoccupied with his apparent constipation.

“This is the 19th century, after all! Girls can be independent! I can do whatever I like!” Kagura continued. “I’ve been waiting for weeks now and if the Sadist is a chicken and won’t ask me out, I will do it myself.”

Sadaharu woofed, happily leaving behind the giant, smelly pile he had been working on for the last fifteen minutes.

“I knew you were on my side, Sadaharu!” Kagura said and jumped on the dogs back.

After her decision, Kagura mustered courage for one week. She enjoyed their training time with Okita and she happily noticed that they were spending more and more time together also after their training time. One evening Kagura almost got her mouth open, when Okita had walked her home from the park and they had stopped to make ducks and drakes by the river just like they did when they were kids. But it was difficult! It was too damn difficult to say anything! Kagura realized that after trying for a week she now had much more understanding for Okita, who had been probably battling with the same problems. And she had much more respect to people who actually ever went to date! She had never realized that it would be so difficult to go on one.

But suddenly, after a week of languishing, a perfect opportunity appeared in front of her. A fireworks display would take place near Kabukichou next week and a firework display would be the perfect setting for their first date. This is what she needed: An event she would like to attend anyway. She would just casually ask him if he wanted to go with her. _That’s perfect._ _Fireworks really are the best_ , Kagura thought in the darkness of her closet as she tried to mentally prepare herself for tomorrow challenge. Tomorrow, after their training, she would definitely ask Okita out.

 

#

 

When Kagura woke up she was already exited. She woke up unusually early and locked herself in the shower until Gintoki decided to knock on the door and ask if she was okay – and more importantly why she was wasting all their hot water. Then Kagura tried to neaten her hair with their kitchen scissors – a stunt that yielded rather curious looks from Gintoki’s direction. She carefully chose her clothes ending up with one of her favorite dresses. It was a red and gold dress very similar to the one that she had always worn as a child. _Will the Sadist think I’m childish if I’m wearing this dress_? She didn’t think so. In the end, however, she decided to leave her hair open to maintain a more adult look.

Then make-up. Kagura didn’t own many articles of make-up, but she had – with varying success –tried to learn how to give herself a simple look. Mascara and blush make a lot already for a young girl like you, had anego told her. She carefully applied the black mascara on her lashes trying her best not to mess it all over her face. Only a little is enough, anego used to say when they had practiced at her place. She brushed the accidental black strikes from her cheek with a wet towel and took out the blush. She tried to apply it with caution. For some reason she usually always ended up overdoing it so that Gintoki asked her to wash her face before leaving the house, but today she tried to be extra careful.

She looked at the result from the bathroom mirror. She didn’t have much make-up on but there was still a clear difference. This had to be a good result. She decided to give her looks a try and waltzed to the living room. Gintoki was staring at her with raised eyebrows. Kagura stood in front of him and waited to be studied.

“You’ll pass,” Gintoki finally noted returning to the manga he had been reading.

“Yess!” Kagura yelled out and ran out of the door. She didn’t see the worried look on Gintoki’s face when he caught the last glimpse of her heels.

Kagura ran all the way to the park. She was there early, she knew it, but she didn’t mind. She climbed to a three and seated herself onto one particularly large branch. Then see sat and waited. She rested her back to the tree trunk and closed her eyes for a second just to open them again to see if Okita was already coming. 

 

#

 

Today, their training was nothing like usual. Kagura was so nervous that most of Okita’s attacks came right through.

“China, you’re really despicable today. I feel like I’m fighting with a hippo and even the hippo seems to have it hands and legs tied.”

“Shut up, Sadist.” Kagura tried to swallow her embarrassment. She was distracted. She couldn’t keep not thinking of the closing moment when she would finally ask Okita out with her. Moreover, she was – for the first time in her life – trying to fight without messing up her hair and make-up. She hadn’t realized it would be this much of a drag. “You shut up, Sadist. Fighting you is like fighting a kitchen table, because you’re so.. umm your so…” Kagura couldn’t come up with anything that would make her utterance even close to insulting or sensible. “You’re so flat,” she muttered finally.

Okita’s whole being was mocking her when he laughed. “You shouldn’t be the one to talk, A-cup.”

Kagura’s face was burning hot. Damn that idiot Sadist. Stupid Okita.

“China, I think we’re done for today. We’re not getting anywhere with you so clearly distracted.”

Kagura sighed but silently she agreed with the Sadist. Now she should just find a way to come up with the question. Okita sauntered to the nearby tree and sat down leaning on the trunk. He burrowed his pockets for a moment and found a strip of gum. Leisurely, he started chewing. _Should I go to sit with to him? Or just ask now? Just pop out the question?_ Kagura was lifting her weight from one foot to another trying to decide what to do. _Why is this so difficult? Just open your mouth and speak, idiot._ She ended up strolling around the tree for a moment before lying down to the grass. Okita was concentrated blowing a large bubble of gum. Kagura heard when the bubble exploded with a silent pop. She wasn’t right next to him, but not far either.

 _Aargh, it’s not good that I’m lying here. Or maybe it is. Maybe it’s easier to speak up if I don’t see his stupid intimidating face._ She lied there silently for minutes listening to the chewing sound and popping of the gum bubbles. Finally she found her courage.

“Okita-san…” Kagura started with hesitation. She got Okita’s attention immediately by calling him with his actual name. “I was wondering if you would like to go to see the fireworks with me tomorrow,” she asked. Her voice sounded annoyingly timid even though she had tried to pop out the question as casually as possible. She sat up hoping to meet Okita’s eyes, but he looked away and stayed silent. _Why isn’t he looking at me?_ Kagura’s moods started to sink as she the seconds dragged on.

“Look Kagura..” Okita finally started and everything in him screamed of discomfort. “I’m sorry if I have given you the wrong idea, but I can’t go out with you. Not like that.”

“What do you mean you can’t? I’m almost an adult now, so that’s not a problem anymore,” Kagura said and was still able to bring up something that she considered to be a flirting smile on her lips.

“That’s no it. I can’t explain,” Okita said quietly.

Kagura stared at him. The figure in front of her was nothing like the man she was used to. Okita Sougo shouldn’t be apologetic. Okita Sougo shouldn’t sit on the ground with crunched shoulders and head down. Okita Sougo shouldn’t look so defeated.

“I just can’t. Let it go, China.”

Kagura felt an aching feeling that started to gather around her chest and stomach. Her vision became blurry with tears. She didn’t want to cry, but the embarrassment of being rejected was too strong. She had just gathered up all the courage God had given her to ask the boy she liked out and this was what he did. Just rejected her without an explanation. After all these weeks training together! It was too annoying to even admit it now, how big of a crush se had developed for him. And for what? Nothing! To be embarrassed and turned down.

“You’re such an ass, you know!” Kagura snarled, but Okita’s defeated look didn’t budge. “Can you hear me, you idiot?!” she shouted. He should at least stand up and fight. Be normal. Not to stoop on the ground. “Stand up, you bastard! Fight me! Or am not good enough for even fighting anymore.”

“We can train again tomorrow, but I’m not fighting you now,” Okita said. He eyed Kagura, who by now had become completely overwhelmed by her rage. Kagura’s stance was wide and her both feet were firmly on the ground. Her fists were up, ready to take action any second, and her eyes were cold. The girl who had just moments before timidly asked Okita out had vanished behind the monster. Okita turned on his heels and headed out of the park.

“Were are you going? Are you scared? You coward!” Kagura shouted on the top of her lungs. “You fucking coward! I hate you!” When nothing she said seemed to affect Okita’s resolve to walk out of the situation, Kagura turned on her heels and started running to the opposite direction. When she ran, her eyes started to fill with tears. Her rage was mixed up with humiliation and disappointment. She couldn’t go home, not now. It would be impossible to be at home with Gintoki as usual after all what just happened. She ran through the streets of Kabukicho blinded by her tears. She didn’t bother to look who were the people she knocked down on her way nor did she turn to answer when a hooded figure called “Leader” after her in a concerned voice. She ran until her feet gave up from pure exhaustion in a dark alley. After smashing an old rock wall into smithereens she finally slumped behind a dumpster. Her shoulders were shaking vigorously as she cried and cried.

When the three young men spotted the girl behind the dumpster, she had fallen into restless sleep. Her face was messy with smudged makeup and her hair was tangled. She was hugging her knees and resting her head against a pile of old magazines. The three men thought they had found something quite nice to play with. They just didn’t know yet that it definitely wasn’t their lucky day.


	7. Didn't Your Mom Tell You?

“My my my… What do we have here?” started a blond tall man who stood closest to Kagura. His face was long and he wore ripped blue jeans. “What is such a little girl doing here on her own?” The man laughed with a crackling voice.

“I think we got lucky,” chuckled the second one. He was a smaller guy with mussed hair and clean clothes. The third man who was quietly leaning on the wall looked most frightening of them all. His arms were covered in tattoos and he had piercings in his face. All his clothes were black and only his eyes moved when he followed the situation.

The blond hovered over the sleeping figure. “Hey girlie, time to wake up!” He stood there for a moment but his words seemed to have no effect on the sleeping girl. “Hey! Are you deaf or what, girl? It’s waking time.” To emphasize his words the man slapped the Kagura on the cheek. If he had been able to rethink the situation afterwards, he would have noticed that this slap was the biggest mistake of his life.

Before the man’s hand left contact with Kagura’s cheek, it was already gripped firmly by her. She was now wide awake with no signs of sleepiness whatsoever on her figure. Her stance was wide and stable when she twisted the man’s hand eliciting a scream.

“What did you think you were doing?” Kagura asked. Her voice was dripping with anger.

“No- Nothing! I swear!” the man screamed his eyes wide with fear.

“Nothing, uhuh, he says. But he should know, that a woman can never trust a man’s word.” With one quick movement she broke the arm she was holding. If there was something she didn’t want to hear right now, it was men lying to her.

Suddenly, the second man was on her back trying to release his friend from Kagura’s grip.

“What a fool,” Kagura muttered as she threw the man gracefully to the wall. She faintly registered the smell of splattering blood when the man’s face came in contact with the wall. _Blood_. Her own blood surged through her veins powerfully as her brain settled to meet the battlefield in front of her. _Blood_ , she thought and a cold smile crept on her face. She aimed a kick to break one leg from the man she was holding to prevent his escape before she rushed to the scene where the seductive smell of blood originated from. She jumped on the man and let her fist mash his nose in. She could feel how the power within her was increasing. Intoxicated by the smell of blood, she savored the feeling of power in her veins.

 _My strength is increasing_ , Kagura thought as her fists pounded the man in the face until he was completely motionless. Kagura sat on top of him, her eyes wide and her lips twisted in a joyous smile. She raised her face towards the sky and screamed with the whole power of her rejoicing heart. Her beastly voice echoed from the tall buildings of Kabukicho. Then she registered a small noise coming from the direction of the blond man. With only one leg left, he was trying to drag himself away from the scene. In one swift movement Kagura was squatting in from of him, blocking his way out. Her face and clothes were soaked in blood and her smile was a smile of a monster when she licked the blood from her lips.

“Didn’t I ask you to wait for me? Where do you think you’re going?” She asked with a sweet voice. The man just stared at her with his eyes wide and couldn’t do anything to escape when Kagura slowly retrieved a small knife from her pocket and brought it to his throat. The man in her hands was shaking and his eyes were tearing up when Kagura carefully slit his throat with a smile on her face. She watched in silence as the blood from his arteries gushed on the street.

A slow clapping voice got her attention. Kagura turned to look and saw the third man observing her and clapping his hands slowly.

“Beautiful, girl, just beautiful,” he said with a cold, soft voice.

Kagura looked at him and noticed that the man hadn’t moved a single inch during the whole fight. His eyes were dark and his sharp features made him resemble a wild animal. Under his black clothes his body was lean. His posture was relaxed, but it was only to fool the eye. Kagura noticed how this man was prepared to move any moment.

“Why aren’t you running?” Kagura asked. “I like my prey running.”

“I guess I’m not your prey then,” answered the man softly. _Young, but calm_ , Kagura noted in her head. _Could be experienced in fight_. She evaluated the situation fast before surging towards the man. The man didn’t budge until Kagura was almost touching him. Then he dodged her attack gracefully.

“I’m not here to fight you, girlie,” he said slowly.

“Well I am,” Kagura spat and launched into a second attack.

This time the man didn’t dodge but took her attack head on. He captured Kagura’s small wrists in his hands, but Kagura was able to break the contact with force. The man was eyeing her appreciatively.

“You’re such a beautiful girl and you fight so gracefully. Nice to meet you, Yato girl.”

Kagura stopped for a second. The man knew she was a Yato. She could sense the appreciation radiating from him. She cocked her head and smiled.

“Nice to meet you, stranger.”

“Didn’t your mum tell you not to talk to strangers?”

“I don’t have a mum.”

“Didn’t your dad warn you about the dangers of dark alleys?”

“My dad is in the outer space.”

In a blink of an eye the man had closed the distance between them. “Then who teaches you the wonders of the world?” the man whispered in her ear.

“You shouldn’t risk your life like that, stranger.” She delivered a strong punch towards his left side, but even from the very short distance, the man was able to block her. He couldn’t meet Kagura in strength, but his timing and speed were excellent. An interesting opponent.

The exchange of blows continued fast and with two strong leaps their fighting ground had extended to the shadowy rooftops of Kabukicho. Kagura’s attacks were aimed to hurt but the strange man was fast. Instead of attacking, he aimed to exhaust his opponent. Kagura, blinded with her emotions, was an easy target for this. Their dance in the moonless night of Edo was beautiful.

It wasn’t long until Kagura’s panting was getting heavier. The man seemed to greet the development with acceptance. He had a faint smile on his sharp features as they battled dancing around each other. Kagura felt her limbs getting heavier but her spirit was still strong. The man in front of her intrigued her and the way he was able to avoid all her attacks annoyed her tremendously. She followed her instincts and fought, but she couldn’t escape the fact that she was tired after everything that had happened during the day.

Finally a smile broke across the man’s face. He had found his opening and when Kagura realized his intentions he was already standing next to her. He tackled Kagura and pinned her tightly against the cold roof tiles.

Kagura was panting. The man’s face was close to hers. Very close. Kagura knew she was strong enough to throw the man away, but for some reason her body was unable to move under the man’s intimidating gaze. Being pinned down like this was too familiar to her. This was what Okita did. Okita loved to tackle her down, pin her to the ground and whisper words of victory to her ear.

 _No! I refuse to think of that bastard. Not now._ Kagura cursed and brought her focus back to the man on top of her. His sharp features were highlighted by the piercings he had in his left eyebrow. The lean and strong arm on her right side was decorated with several tattoos. His upper body was covered by black tank top that made his shoulders broaden. The man was probably quite attractive in his own way, Kagura found herself thinking, but then again, she hardly realized when people were attractive.

Kagura tried to calm her breathe and concentrate in the fight but her efforts seemed futile. Something in the situation they were currently sharing made Kagura’s heart beat faster instead of calming down. Her blood was still hot from the fresh kills and the smell of blood was strong around them. The man studied her silently and intensely. His forceful gaze left Kagura motionless. She shivered when the man suddenly lowered his head and licked her cheek to taste the blood on her face. A faint smile appeared on his lips at the taste of blood as his piercing eyes studied Kagura’s reactions. The most peculiar sensation shot threw her body and she instinctively tried to lift her hips to feel the man better.

Kagura’s mind was swirling. Everything that was happening was strange but in a weird way also very familiar. She had experienced the excitement after her dreams hundreds of times. She knew how it felt to be exited after a battle and this was it. She wanted the man to touch her – she wanted the feel the man. The way the man’s leg was pressing against her inner thigh made her arch her back just lightly to find more contact. It was like her body had a mind of its own. Her mind was hazy and the adrenaline from the fight and from this man made her loose her focus of the situation. In the back of her mind she knew there might have been something wrong with all this, but she couldn’t remember anymore what it was.

The two were staring at each other’s eyes with the concentration of two warriors facing each other in the battlefield. To Kagura, it was exactly what this was. A battlefield. The feeling was very similar to the feeling of entering a battle. It was a feeling she had been yarning for. They were staring at each other in total stillness for long moments before the man finally moved. Fast he lowered his lips to drown Kagura into a vigorous kiss. It was very different from any kiss Kagura had ever experienced before. Their mouths were competing, trying to get the domination of the situation. He bit Kagura’s lower lip but instead of hurting it just sent shivers all the way to the tips of her toes. Kagura’s body was in fire.

Kagura turned her head on the side to expose her neck to the man’s greedy kisses when something on the opposite roof caught her attention. Someone had just silently landed to the roof on the other side of the road. Kagura couldn’t distinguish the face in the darkness but a clear figure outlined against the lights glowing from the streets. Kagura would have recognized the profile anywhere. The anger and humiliation from the day flooded back into her mind and she had one last thought before giving herself completely to this stranger. _You are the one who said no._

She hungrily reached for the man’s lips, reached his hard shoulders with her arms and pressed her body against him. This was the sign the man had been waiting for. He didn’t waste any time and ripped the bloody clothes off her. He sucked her small tits hard and wrapped his other arm around Kagura’s waist. Kagura twisted in his grip grinding her hip against his crotch. All the excitement, adrenalin and burst of emotions distracted Kagura so much that she didn’t have any real fear for her first time. She was on fire, her blood was on fire. The fighting had made her stronger than ever before. She rushed the man inside her as soon as he had gotten rid of his pants. When the strange man filled her and made her howl in the night, she gripped the man’s back hard and closed her eyes to meet the mixture of pleasure and pain.

But Kagura couldn’t keep her eyes closed. Not when he was waiting her in the darkness of her mind. She couldn’t shake Okita’s disapproving eyes from her mind no matter how hard she tried. She glanced at the opposite roof top, but it was empty and silent. Had she really seen him there at all?

Kagura’s focus returned to the man on top of her when he abruptly pulled back and grunted as he came on her thighs. The man rolled over to lie by her side and brought his hand to Kagura’s stomach. He was about to help Kagura reach her orgasm, but instead of indulging to the needs of her body, Kagura abruptly rose up on walk to retrieve her clothes. She couldn’t be here anymore. Not with Okita watching her in her mind. When she realized her dress was too ripped to wear she took the tank top the man had been wearing. It barely covered her, but it was was better than nothing. Without saying a word to the stranger, she jumped down from the roof and ran as fast as she could in the night.

It was nearly sunrise when Kagura finally stood in front of the door of Yorozuya. It was practically impossible that Gin-chan would be awake at this hour, and completely impossible that he would be sitting in the living room waiting for her. She opened slightly the door and peaked in. It was dark. She was safe. She opened and closed the door as silently as she could and tiptoed towards bathroom when she heard a sound from the couch and stilled.

“Kagura, is that you?” Gintoki’s sleepy voice asked. Kagura bolted to the bathroom door and locked it fast behind her.

“It’s me, Gin-Chan. Just sleep. I’m good.”

Kagura’s eyes found the mirror in front of her. She stared at her image in shock. _I’m good?_ In the plain and harsh light of their bathroom she could not escape her image. _Is that really me in the mirror?_ she asked herself. The girl in the mirror looked so different from the girl who had struggling with her make-up and hair in front of the same mirror just 24 hours earlier. Gintoki would have probably died of heart attack if he had seen her – or given her house arrest for the rest of her life. Her hair was tangled and shaggy with dried blood. Her face was covered in red splashes. There were bite marks in her neck and bruises from the fights all over her body. She was wearing only a black large tank top that barely covered her butt. Her thighs were colored in white and red. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe this wasn’t the usual way human girls looked after losing their virginity, but it could be just normal for a healthy Yato girl?

Kagura filled the tub with steaming hot water and let herself indulge in the warmth. She lowered herself until her hair was completely covered in water. She rubbed her hair and watched as the water gradually turned red around her. Soon the whole tub was blood red. Suddenly, all the blood started to disgust her. _I’m sitting in a tub filled with blood. I’m bathing in blood. I’m a monster._ Kagura gagged and shot on her feet. She looked at the repulsive red water and pulled the plug.

When she showered the blood away from her hair and her face, the events of the night began to unfold in front of her. She had killed two people. They had tried to attack her, that is true, but she had been attacked millions of times before and she had managed without killing. This was not self-defense. The men had been horrified and ready to flee after her first move. She slumped to the bottom of the tub when she remembered the face of the blond man before she had slit his throat. First time during that night she sobbed without anger in her. _What’s happening to me? What had happened to the Kagura who had decided to fight against her Yato nature? The one, who had appreciated life in its every form?_ She covered her face in her hands and let the sobs out.

 

#

 

Gintoki was listening on the other side of the door. He knew that Kagura had crossed the border this night. Okita had come to see him, angry and shaken up, telling that he had just witnessed how Kagura had slit a man’s throat without blinking an eye. When Gintoki had asked where Kagura was now, Okita said he had lost her. Then Okita had left, as abruptly as he had entered and Gintoki had stayed in the empty apartment hoping Kagura would come home.

Gintoki hadn’t really had any plans for facing Kagura, but now when he listened how the girl wept alone in the bathtub, his heart melted completely. He knocked to the door softly, but when there was no answer, he quickly picked the lock with one of those hairpins that were always lying everywhere. Kagura didn’t raise her head when he came in. Gintoki registered a black bundle of unfamiliar clothes on the floor and the reek of blood was floating in the steamy room. Kagura was curled up in the empty tub, shivering and shaking. Even after showering she still had traces of blood in her face and hair. This was the first time for a very long time that Gintoki didn’t see in front of him the 17-year-old teenager that had caused him so much trouble lately. No. He saw the little girl he had taken in years ago. Vulnerable and alone in the world.

Gintoki reached for the shower and set the temperature. Then he gently started washing Kagura’s hair untangling in with his fingers. At this very moment he wasn’t bothered by Kagura’s naked body – he hardly noticed it – and all he could see was the little girl that trusted him. The little girl that had chosen to live with him. The little girl who believed that he would always protect her. Gintoki had failed her. He hadn’t been there for her.

Gintoki kissed Kagura’s head when he was done with the shower and lifted the shaking girl into his arms. He carried her to the bedroom, helped her into pajamas and then put her under the covers to the futon next to him. He lied beside her and wrapped his arm around her to sooth her.

“It’s going to be fine, Kagura. We will survive this somehow, you and me. And Shinpachi will help too. We’re going to take care of you, Kagura. I promise I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you anymore.”

He could feel how Kagura’s body softened under his arm when sleep took over her. Soon Kagura’s breathing was slow and steady. Gintoki listened to her breathing and wondered how he could keep the promise he just had made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was one crazy and exiting chapter... At least to me!! Next week we're going to dive into Okita's head for a change. What did you think about it? All feedback is highly valued as always and I really love to hear your thoughts :)


	8. How Can You be a Stranger if I Know You?

Okita Sougo stood alone in a large abandoned warehouse hall. It was their training location for rainy days and this was definitely a rainy day. The streets of Edo were flooding after raining for three days. Okita didn’t think Kagura would show up. She hadn’t come yesterday or the day before that. He had been waiting for her but she hadn’t come. She wouldn’t come today either. What an idiot would go out in the first place when the streets were flooding like small rivers? Okita glanced down on his own muddy pants and wet boots. It was useless to come here.

“Fuck!” he yelled in the cold empty hall and hit his fist to the wall. Pain shot through Okita’s mind as his fist penetrated the thin wood sending splinters in the air just like it had done tens of times before. The wall in front of him was filled with holes and would soon crumble if he didn’t find other ways to channel his anger. “Fuck…” he cursed, this time quietly, and crossly dried the corner of his eye to his sleeve. “Dammit!”

Okita had known that it would be dangerous to turn down Kagura. He had known it and dreaded the day he had to do it. Nevertheless, he had had no choice. His resolve had been crystal clear. He could not let himself fall for the girl, not now when she was such an unpredictable and erratic package of explosives.

“I had no choice,” Okita said to himself and crashed his fist through the wall one more time. “I cannot take it. I cannot risk it!” he yelled in the empty hall. “I cannot go through losing someone again, not after what happened with aneue...”

Okita let himself fall to his knees and pounded the floor with his fist like a little child. A half empty bottle of sake was lying next to him on the cold floor. He lifted the bottle to his lips and gulped down until he grimaced.

His resolve had been crystal clear. There was Kagura who he definitely could like. Beautiful, independent, strong, fun and kind, so full of spirit and always ready for an adventure… The list was endless. Okita could like her, if he just let himself but the way Kagura was right now… He couldn’t risk everything by betting his feelings with her. Not now.

He had known this was risky. He had known this could be pure madness, to get so close her at a time like this. But Gintoki had been definite that training with Okita would be beneficial for Kagura despite everything. And it had been! Okita couldn’t argue with that. Kagura had been behaving very well after she had been able to vent her anger in a controlled way by regularly beating up her rival.

Okita sighed. Both he and Gintoki had assumed that problems would arise, but the whole incident three nights ago had been soaked in bad luck. Okita cursed the idiots who had tried to assault Kagura when she had been in her most explosive state: angry, heartbroken and half asleep. He cursed himself for not being there to stop her and more than anyone else, he cursed Kagura for letting it all happen.

Okita hadn’t slept well in nights. The image of Kagura being pinned down by that tattooed stranger did not fade nor did the image of Kagura hungrily reaching for the stranger’s lips. Okita couldn’t rid himself of the expression on Kagura’s face when she had caught a glimpse of him in the opposite roof. She had been so determined and cold. How satisfied Kagura had looked when she had fucked that stranger in the night.

Okita shuddered at the memory. It had been too much to him. He had made his exit as silently as his entry after he knew there was no turning back for Kagura anymore. Okita smashed his fist to the hard concrete floor under him and his eyes silently followed as the blood from his knuckles invaded the small pores of the material. The ache in his fists was killing him but it was nowhere near enough to drown the pain in his chest when he remembered how Kagura had moaned in those tattooed hands.

_My resolve was clear. I turned her down because I didn’t want to get hurt. So why the hell I’m hurting so much right now?_

A sudden noise made his body harden. It was a scooter braking and after a short moment revving into motion again. It was followed by a short silence after which he could hear someone at the door. Okita stood up and straightened his uniform. He spat on the dirty floor and stared the door. A familiar feeling of anger surrounded him and sharpened his senses. _Come. I’m ready._

 

#

 

Kagura stepped into the dim warehouse hesitantly. She didn’t want to be there. She had screamed and wailed when Gintoki forced her to put on decent clothes and go out of the apartment, but Gintoki had been adamant with his decision to get Kagura outside. He had also forced Kagura to meet Okita again and Kagura couldn’t find a convincing way to say no. She had never told Gintoki what had happened between them.

The air of the warehouse hit against Kagura’s face like a cold and wet cloth making her flinch at the sudden change of the temperature. Kagura shuddered and fisted her hands. The reality that loomed before her, the fact that she had to face the one person she would have liked to shun the most, slowed down her steps. She hoped she could be thousand miles away, or that she could just disappear – anything to spare her from seeing him again. But even though her mind was fixed to fleeing from the whole situation, there was a tiny part in her that wondered if she could finally get the explanation that Okita never gave her.

Kagura stared across the dim hall. She couldn’t see well, not before her eyes got accustomed to the lack of light, but there was no question – Okita was here. Kagura could feel his presence and hear his silent footsteps in the emptiness. She was alerted instantly. Something in the way he moved was unfamiliar. She stayed guardedly near the door and far away from Okita who stood silently in the other end of the hall. When Kagura’s vision finally returned, she saw him staring at her with his piercing eyes.

“You came,” he said coldly.

“Gin-chan forced me,” Kagura answered truthfully.

“Of course he did.”

Okita walked forwards slowly and Kagura followed his every movement with her eyes. She could sense the anger in him – hear it from his steps and smell it in the air. She was wary. The Sadist might be very dangerous if he would attack.

“Fight me, China.” Okita said. He had stopped in the middle of the large space and was still staring at her with his strange, red eyes.

Kagura took a few steps closer and widened her stance. The way Okita talked made her very uncomfortable.

“Fight me, China!” Okita yelled.

“Okita, I don’t—“

“I don’t want your words. Fight me or I’ll crush you.” He widened his stance to mirror Kagura. They stared at each other for a long time. “Come!” Okita yelled.

Kagura’s fighter’s instincts kicked in when needed and she launched herself into a tentative attack. As soon as she felt the air on her face as she swiftly moved towards her target, she got on the top of the situation again. _I won’t let Okita’s weird mood fool me. I can still fight,_ she thought when her hair blew in the air. The first contact she made with Okita electrified her body. Something was very different today. The tension in Okita’s body, the look in his eyes… Kagura knew that Okita was fighting her for real now.

Their battle intensified fast and they exchanged blows in an increasing speed. They were both in the air, taking footholds where ever they could find. The confined and familiar space was an easy environment for the both of them. Kagura had clear difficulties to keep up in Okita’s speed but what she lacked in speed she always compensated in raw power. However, she was now fighting with someone who knew all her weaknesses. Okita would never give her enough time to launch a truly powerful attack. He did not give her the chance to get into close contact. Okita knew exactly how she fought and mercilessly used all his knowledge against her. He dealt blows at her while keeping himself in continuous movement and Kagura soon sensed that she was on the losing side. Her breathing grew heavier as she tried to keep up with him, but her efforts were in vain. Today, she was no match for Okita.

“Not so strong today, are we China?” Okita mocked her.

“Shut up. I’m strong enough to fight you,” she snarled back.

“Yes, yes.. like a bull.” Okita delivered a heavy kick behind her knee and before she could turn around he had already taken his distance. “Just as strong as you were when you were slaughtering those poor men,” Okita slashed with his words.

It took a moment for Kagura to catch her breath after his words. She hadn’t expected this. “They attacked me first,” she said and although it was true she knew how false she was.

“Don’t fuck with me, China!” Okita shouted. “I saw you. I saw you when you slit that man’s throat with no mercy.”

Kagura winced at the words and swallowed hard. She wanted to explain, she wanted to tell how sorry she was, but the adrenaline in her system forced her to attack instead of backing down.

“Well what if I did!” She shouted. She had been cornered and her instincts told her to attack back with all she got. “It’s not like it’s any of your business!”

“You made it my business when you agreed to train with me! You broke our deal.”

“Only after you had played around with me just to turn your back to me when I finally asked you out!” Kagura cried. No matter how hard she tried to sound tough, her words came out more desperate than anything else. Her eyes were filling up with tears but it did not soften his opponent.

“And what did you do then? Ran into the night to slaughter people and fuck strangers.” Okita’s eyes were ice cold and his voice was venomous. He wasn’t shouting anymore. His voice was calm as steel which made it only more frightening.

Suddenly Okita was on her skin, pressing her against the cold wall. “Is fucking strangers what you want, huh?” His words were like lumps of ice on her spine.

Kagura flattened herself against the wall when she suddenly realized there was a strong smell of alcohol in Okita’s breath. It wasn’t like him to drink, especially when they were training. Her body was shaking. This was the first time she had ever been afraid of Okita Sougo.

“This is what you want, huh?” Okita yelled to her ear. “Just fucking with no feelings. Just like you wanted that night.”

Kagura had never seen Okita’s eyes so cold. The usual playfulness was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s your foul mouth now, China? Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?” Okita had brought his hand to her cheek and was stroking her skin lightly with his thumb but there was no warmth in anything he did. His touch was cold and unfamiliar, his voice strained and his eyes belonged to a stranger.

“Do you want to fuck me too, China? Just like that stranger. I can fuck you right away if you want to.”

Kagura swallowed with difficulty. The man standing in front of her was a stranger to her. She wanted to flee but her body was frozen to the wall. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t make a sound.

“Oh for fucks sake, China, don’t be such a tease. It’s not like you have you’re virginity to protect or anything anymore.” Okita’s cruel laugh did not manage to hide the hurt in his voice when he spoke the words. Kagura’s body was shaking as she closed her eyes.

“You shouldn’t have gone and fucked that stranger,” Okita whispered to her ear.

Kagura yelped when she suddenly felt Okita’s mouth forced on her lips. The taste of sake and anger flooded into her mouth, the stubble on his chin and upper lip scratched her, pain shot to her brain when Okita violently bit her lip, and all the power, all the familiar power she usually had, was leaving her body. Kagura was powerless and weak against him, unable to do anything. A feeling of panic gathered in her head when Okita’s harsh push banged her head against the hard concrete behind her.

 _This is how much I hurt him and now his going to pay back,_ Kagura thought and desperately tried to find an escape. She pressed her eyes closed – if for nothing else, only to stop the tears that were flowing down her cheeks.

_But this is not him. This is not the Sadist I know._

Kagura swallowed and mustered up all the strength she could find. Okita was not himself. He was not himself. She had to stop him.

Kagura placed her hands against Okita’s shoulders and pushed with all her force. Together with the surprise it caused, the push was more than enough to throw him a good distance backwards.

“SOUGO!” She cried. “PLEASE, SOUGO, STOP THIS! THIS IS NOT YOU!”

Okita’s eyes widened in shock.

“Sougo, please… Just stop…” Kagura pleaded and collapsed on her knees. She was now crying wildly and her tears were wetting the hard concrete. “This is not you…” she continued repeating.

Okita stared her in silence with a frightened expression on his face. Kagura didn’t know if it was the push or her pleading, but something had woken him up from his frenzy. Okita turned around and ran. After the cold clank of the closing door, Kagura let out a long exhale. She had stopped breathing without noticing it. The drumming noise filled the emptiness of the warehouse. It was still raining outside.


	9. All You Need is a Good Punch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support and feedback. It's really important to me! Hope you enjoy this chapter. ^_^

“What do we do, Gin-san?” Shinpachi’s frantic voice filled the apartment.

Gintoki was slowly pacing around in the small living room.

“Gin-san, something has happened to her! We haven’t heard from her in days! We have to do something! We have to search for her!”

Gintoki nodded silently mostly just to shut up the four-eyes. He had to concentrate. He glanced at Okita who was sitting on the couch. The Shinsengumi captain had hardly said a word after arriving. His eyes were surrounded by large black circles as if he hadn’t slept in days. The look in his eyes was frantic with a hint of craziness. _Are you just so worried about Kagura, Souichirou-kun?_ Gintoki asked in his mind. _What happened between the two of you?_ This was a loop Gintoki had been left out. He was sure something had happened – after all, Okita was acting extremely strange even for him – but Gintoki couldn’t figure out what it was.

Okita had been wary when he came to the apartment, tense like a wild animal ready to flee. Gintoki was not quite sure, but he had a feeling that every time he looked at Okita’s direction, the younger man flinched as if being punched by an invisible fist. _Did you do something to my Kagura-chan, or is this just how you look after a week without sleep?_

“Gin-san!” Shinpachi’s annoyed voice brought Gintoki back from his thoughts. “What should we do? What if Kagura has fled the city? She’s somewhere all alone! She could be dead for all we know!” Shinpachi’s voice was breaking with his last words.

“Or she could be responsible for bunch of deaths for all we know,” Gintoki muttered causing Shinpachi to yelp out loud.

“Don’t say that, Gin-san! Don’t say anything like that when we don’t know for sure! Don’t say things like that about Kagura-chan…” Shinpachi sank on to the couch with an empty look on his face.

Gintoki didn’t say anything. He couldn’t know, so there was now point in making empty assumptions.

“I don’t think she’s out there killing,” Okita said with a low voice. He hadn’t raised his eyes from the floor. “We would have heard if there was a Yato on loose decapitating people as we speak.”

“You’re right, Okita-san!” Shinpachi exclaimed and stood up from the couch again. “We would know if she was on rampage.”

Gintoki nodded. “Yes, I think you’re right. After all, she’s not the type to work in a subtle manner and cover her tracks.”

Shinpachi sighed and let out a long breath he had been holding in. “I don’t know what we can do anymore with her. I just want to get back the Kagura I used to know.” Shinpachi’s voice was miserable and his eyes were tearing up.

“Don’t worry about that now, Patsuan.” Gintoki said firmly but warmly. “We need to concentrate on finding her. Only after she’s safe with us again we can return to the original problem.”

Suddenly, Gintoki was alerted. The room was electrified with a strange presence.

“Do you know what the real problem here is? The real problem with all three of you?” An unfamiliar but friendly voice came from the window.

A dark figure was sitting on the windowsill. All three men in the room jumped to their stances. Okita revealed some glistening steel and Gintoki reached for his bokutou. The bright light darkened the features of the intruder so that they could see only his profile. Slender body of a young man with long braided hair. The room was death silent until the intruder spoke again.

“You’re all trying to change her into something she is not. You’re trying to prevent her from being herself. You must know that your battle is already lost.”

The man stood up and was standing in the window frame. He turned his face to the sun and let his ocean blue eyes and vermillion red hair soak in the bright rays for a moment before covering himself with his umbrella.

“Kamui.” Gintoki’s voice was hard. All there men stared the intruder with darkened eyes.

“Don’t be so tight!” Kamui told them with a cheerful smile on his boyish face. “I’m not here for you heads.”

“Why are you here, Kamui?” Okita snarled.

“My, my... Aren’t you all hostile today!” Kamui met Okita’s tired eyes and a wicked smile rose to his lips. “I just heard a rumor that my baby sister has finally blossomed. I wanted to come and celebrate. Maybe she’d like to join me afterwards. After all, now that she has finally revealed her true colors I doubt that this silly little planet will amuse her much longer.”

Shinpachi was the first one to speak. “You—you bastard! You stay away from Kagura-chan!” he shouted.

Kamui’s smile beamed like sunshine when he measured them with his eyes. “Would you really separate a loving brother from his baby sister? How cruel of you.”

“Shinpachi’s right,” Gintoki said with a low voice. “Kagura is better without you.”

“Is she, now… I wonder if she is. After all… I’m the one of us who can help her through all the difficulties she’s going through right now. I’m the one of us who knows what it means to be a Yato. Whether you like it or not, we are the same – me and her. We are blood. So it is you, really, who should stay away from her.” Kamui’s eyes widened with his last words and a beastly smile took over his face. For a second everything in him screamed of the danger he was. His eyes brimmed with the blood lust inside him. “Besides, I think she might finally be useful to me.”

“Stay away from Kagura,” Okita repeated.

Every hint of Kamui’s changed appearance had disappeared and his face was lit with his usual cheerful smile again. “My, my... You sure don’t listen to reason,” Kamui said. “Well then, it’s going to be a game… and I like games. It is a game of who can find Kagura first. You have numbers on your side and you know the terrain but I have my instincts and I’m her brother alter all. Oh, this is going to be fun! Let’s see who wins. Bye!” And with those words Kamui had disappeared from the windowsill.

The three men let their bodies relax as silence filled the apartment.

“Gin-san! This is terrible!” Shinpachi screamed. “What are we going to do?”

Gintoki didn’t have to stop thinking. His mind was already working.

“We will move right away,” he said with a calm voice. Kagura was his sweet little girl, closer to him than anyone else in this world and she was in a real danger now, but it was not the time to lose his cool. “Shinpachi, go alert everyone. Tell everyone who we can trust in Kabukicho that we have to find Kagura fast. They will help. Go!”

Gintoki didn’t have to ask twice and when he finished his sentence Shinpachi had already vanished from the room. Gintoki and Okita were standing in the room silent room. Gintoki measured Okita with his eyes. Kamui’s interference had woken him up but he was still clearly off his usual game. Gintoki hadn’t said anything to him while Shinpachi was still around but he knew he had to deal with this. He had to get Okita back to his feet if they wanted to win this sick little game Kamui was playing with them.

Gintoki stood silently trying to choosing words and pondering the situation. He noticed how Okita averted his gaze every time their eyes were about to meet and how Okita’s frame seemed smaller than usual, apologetic. The sensation that Gintoki was in a same room with a trapped wild animal didn’t leave.

“Sougo, I don’t know what happened between you and Kagura and you don’t have to tell me.” Gintoki’s voice was calm and his eyes studied the younger man who still refused to look him in the eye. “I know you did something that hurt her.” Gintoki stared at Okita hoping to see a reaction.

Seeing how Okita stilled completely at his words was enough proof for him at the moment. Without any warning Gintoki launched a punch that landed straight on Okita’s nose. A crunching noise was followed by blood gushing on the floor. Okita was gasping at Gintoki with his eyes wide. Gintoki finally had his full attention.

“Okay, that was it then,” Gintoki noted casually and gave Okita paper to stop the bleeding. “I don’t need to know what you did. And this is enough because whatever you have done, Kagura still likes you and I know you’re in love with her. You will fix this when we find Kagura, but if we want to find her and if we want to take on Kamui, I can’t have you lurking around like a half dead panda. I need you to focus on what’s important.”

Okita stared at him and nodded. Gintoki was finally able to see emotions in his face. Surprise, regret, shock. Okita pressed his palm against his bleeding nose and coughed.

“Thanks, Danna.”

“Okay then, you’ll go put those tax robbers of yours into some good use. I have some eyes to open in the underground.”

#

“Sougo, you look like shit.”

“Hijikata-saan, let’s not get stuck in irrelevancies. You’re not such an eye candy yourself, you know.”

Okita raced their police car sirens wailing through the streets of Edo. All available units were now looking for the Yato girl. As the car whizzed down the streets of Kabukicho, Okita realized that the streets were swarming with familiar faces. He spotted Kondo-san who had joined his forces with Otae-san and the other hostesses. He recognized a fearful group of okamas questioning confused people and when he raised his eyes to the rooftops, he could see the nearly invisible ninjas who scouted the city from the air. Standing on a corner of a dim alleyway, Okita recognized a familiar hooded figure accompanied by a large duck-like amanto. Okita made a mental note not to catch the Joui leader during the next few weeks as a thanks for their help. Everyone was there. Everyone was there for Kagura.

Okita’s fists were turning white as he clenched the steering wheel and drops of sweat were gathering to his temples. Hijikata glances were worried but he didn’t say anything. Okita knew he had been a mess already before Gintoki had smashed his fist into his face. Now he looked downright horrible with the side of his nose turning purple and swelling. He was thankful to Hijikata who had decided not to ask for any details.

“Sougo, I can drive for a while if you want to rest.” Hijikata seemed to be genuinely concerned about the first captain’s condition and probably also about his own safety in the car the sleep-deprived manically smiling captain was steering.

“Fine, you drive.” Okita hit the brakes abruptly causing a concert of angry honking behind them. He gave his seat to Hijikata who let out a long exhale.

As soon as the car was on the move again, Okita closed his eyes. He should try to safe his strength. Facing Kamui would not be a stroll in the park even if he could take on him together with Danna. Kamui was a fully trained Yato fighter, a prodigy even within his own people. Okita was not afraid of facing him – he was never afraid of fighting – but he knew it would be a long struggle.

What Okita really was afraid of, was facing Kagura. He hadn’t seen her after he had left her in the warehouse. With his eyes closed, Okita’s mind wandered back to the warehouse again. He remembered how he had fled from the scene and how the shocked and terrified expression on Kagura’s face had looked. He had ran a few blocks in the heavy rain just to get away from his crime scene before he had collapsed to the ground. Gripping his hair he had sat there, letting the rain wash away the tears that had been flooding on his cheeks. His clothes had been soon soaked and muddy but he hadn’t cared. At that moment he had been as worthless as a cockroach in the mud just hoping that someone would have the decency to step on him and squash him to his death. What he had done in the warehouse… What he had said to Kagura… How could he ever face her again? Okita shuddered at his thoughts. What would have happened if Kagura hadn’t managed to stop him? He still remembered crystal clear in his mind how the rage had felt. _How he had wanted to hurt her._

Okita covered his mouth with his palms. He was going to be sick. Whenever his mind returned to the warehouse, he almost puked but he never did. He felt so sick that he coughed and gagged but nothing ever came out. He couldn’t get rid of the nauseous feeling in his stomach and he knew why. It was him who was sickening and repulsive and he couldn’t get rid of himself.

The honorable thing to do would’ve been to kill himself. A clean and nice seppuku for hurting someone you care about. Or if he wanted to go the flashy way he could always climb up to the top of the O-Edo Central Terminal and jump. But Okita Sougo was not the honorable man. So instead of trying to climb up on top of the most tightly secured building in all Edo he had dragged himself to home, taken a shower and went to work. Nobody in the Shinsengumi had had the courage to speak to him the way he looked, but Okita didn’t mind. He had vented his rage by humiliating the new trainees on the Shinsengumi courtyard until Kondo had forced him to take a couple of day off. When his work – his last resort of sanity – had been deprived from him, he had found himself lying on the floor of his apartment. No one had showed up to his door for two whole days. He hadn’t eaten nor slept. A realization that he actually didn’t have any friends in this city had crept to him slowly but surely. Okita had no idea how long he would have lied there or what would have happened to him if Gintoki hadn’t eventually showed up and forced him to open the door. When he heard that Kagura was missing, his priorities had suddenly cleared. Whatever happened, he had to find her. He was the cause of this whole mess.

Okita’s thoughts wondered back to killing himself by jumping from the highest building of Edo when he suddenly opened his eyes and straightened his body. “Hijikata-san, what’s the tallest building in Kabukicho?”

“The old TV-tower I guess. It’s located on a hill and its antennas reach higher than anything else in the region. Why?”

Okita didn’t bother to answer when he picked up the police radio. “This is Okita-taichou. If any unit is near the old Kabukicho TV-tower, I request you to check it immediately.” He waited and soon he could hear words in the radio noise.

“This is Hattori Zenzou. I’m in the roofs nearby. I’ll take this.”

Hijikata grabbed the speaker from Okita’s hand. “Hattori who?” he yelled. “Who are you and what are you doing in our police radio frequency?”

“—“

Hijikata and Okita stared at the police radio that now stayed silent.

“Hijikata-san, how far are we from that TV-tower?”

“Not very far.”

“Go there as fast as you can.”

Whenever Kagura was upset, she would search for high places. In the roofs she felt she was closer to her pappy in the space and her mummy in heaven. She would enjoy the wind on her face and envy the seagulls that filled the sky with their screams. She would raise her face towards the skies and ask herself if she was happy here in the Earth or if she should go back to the space. Where did she belong? So far she had always eventually climbed down and returned to Yorozuya, to her friends and family.

“Okita-taichou, do you copy?” said the strange voice in the police radio.

“This is Okita. What do you have, mystery fellow?”

“I located the target. She’s on the top of the TV-tower, but she’s not alone. There’s a young man with him. A young man with long read hair.”

“Shit.” Okita cursed. “We’re on our way. Hit the gas, Hijikata-san.”

Okita clenched his fists and listened to the tires squealing as the car shot forward. _Kamui,_ he thought and hoped that Gintoki would get the word in time.

When they finally reached the TV-tower, Okita realized he wouldn’t have needed to worry. Word had circulated well enough for the square to be swarming with people. Even though the search was over now, everyone was eager to witness the finale. Okita cursed and hoped that the amount of people wouldn’t freak out Kagura. He bolted out of the car and ran forwards the tower. How many floors it would be? Fifty? Seventy? He glanced at the elevator doors but realized that the since the building had been out of use for some time already, there would be no power. He rushed towards the staircase with Hijikata who had been following him. They cursed the stairs together as they leap upwards. Damn, this took too much time. Hopefully Danna had already made his way to the top.

The amount of stairs seemed endless, but Okita didn’t feel exhaustion in his legs from the adrenalin in his bloodstream. When they finally made it to the top floor – it was 61st – both men were soaked in sweat and huffing and puffing. They stopped to catch their breath before aiming for the roof, when they heard a familiar ding of an elevator. Both men turned their faces towards the elevator. The doors slid open quietly and Gintoki stepped out.

“Oh, it’s surprising but very convenient that the elevators are still working, isn’t it?” he noted casually as he walked pass them.

Okita was quite sure that he could hear a vein popping in Hijikata’s forehead before they both jumped up and followed Gintoki to the roof.


	10. Big Brothers can be Nasty and Big Brothers can be Nice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slightly longer wait for this chapter, but behold the price: long and intense chapter! Hope you like it! Thanks for everyone who has left comments / kudos, it's incredible to see that people like my story.

Kagura was swinging her legs in the air sitting on an old antenna on the top of the Kabukicho TV-tower. The roof was maybe ten meters below her, but Kagura was not the one to be afraid of heights. For some reason or another, she couldn’t quite tear her eyes off the large, puffy clouds that leisurely floated in the sky. The clouds were disappearing one by one beyond the horizon. _Where are they going?_ Kagura asked herself. The sky was still blazing red after the sunset and the evening was slowly dimming.

This was one of Kagura’s secret favorite places in Kabukicho. Alone, above everything else, she could forget the world around her and let her mind wonder freely. She blinked slowly and stared at the O-Edo Central Terminal. Ships were coming and going. From the distance they looked like flies or maybe sparrows, but definitely not full-sized space craft. She watched as the tiny spaceships disappeared to the sky. She could be in one of those ships. Maybe she would be on her way to find pappy. She could start working with him. Pappy would hate the idea first, but Kagura was quite sure she could persuade him to take her with him.

 _Leaving Earth – is it really an option?_ This wasn’t the first time Kagura played with the thought, but for a long, long time she hadn’t actually considered it, not for real. Her life was here. Her real family and friends were all here. Moving away from Yorozuya would be not only a shock for her but also a huge jolt for Gin-chan. They had lived together for years. If she were to leave Earth, would they ever meet again? When would she come back to this strange but ever so amusing little planet? Kagura sighed. She hated the idea of leaving, she really did, but…

The clouds continued lumber forward and disappear behind the edge of Kagura’s vision. Below her, Kabukicho was covered in red haze of the evening light. She loved this town and the idea of leaving frightened her, but staying seemed to be equally difficult. She didn’t belong here. She hurt people accidentally – _accidentally?_ asked a small voice in her head – and she was dangerous. How much had she tried to fight against her nature… It was almost laughable – her idealism in the past. Thinking that she could really change what she was. Thinking that if she just decided not to kill, her life would go on like nothing happened. _I can’t change what I am. I belong to a race of monsters and it makes me a monster._ The lump in her throat and the tightness in her chest made breathing difficult but Kagura couldn’t cry. To her own surprise, she was laughing. Not loudly or freely like people laugh when they are happy. She was laughing chokingly and quietly with the tears she couldn’t cry. _I’m a monster and they know it. Shin-chan knows it and he’s afraid of me. Gin-chan knows it and he doesn’t know what to do with me. And Okita… He knows it better than anyone and he hates me._

Kagura winced at the thought and refused to think about him. She had shut the memories of the warehouse in the back of her mind, strictly forbidding herself to tamper with them. Her chest felt tighter than ever as she tensed her grip around the cold metal pole of the antenna. Knuckles gradually turning whiter, she tried to take in some deep breaths.

The worst thing was that she didn’t understood a thing. Or she did. Maybe she understood something. She had hurt him and he had hurt her. But the look in Okita’s eyes when they fought. It still made her shudder. Those cold eyes had replaced every sweet and funny memory that had been filling Kagura’s head before- before everything had gone so wrong. Before everything had been fucked up in a way so colossal that nothing would ever be the same again.

The girl that had asked Okita to see the fireworks with her… Was she even the same person anymore? So much had happened so fast. Nothing would ever be the same again. Kagura let the wind curl her hair and rested her eyes in the clouds. She couldn’t grow tired of them. This was her kingdom. Here she could feel at peace. And this was the last place where she would’ve expected to sense the presence of someone she hadn’t sensed in a very long time.

“Kamui,” Kagura spoke, but did not turn her head nor did anything in her body give away that she would have noticed the intruder of her privacy.

“Hi sis!” Kamui sang. He was standing on a landing couple of meters below her. “Do you mind if I come up there?” Without waiting a permission he started climbing upwards.

“What do you want, Kamui?” Kagura asked with a low voice. She knew her brother was an evil son-of-a-bitch and the smile couldn’t fool her.

“I just want to talk with you. Is it so strange if a big brother wants to hear how her sister is doing?”

“It is, if the big brother is you.” Kagura tried to see under Kamui’s cheerful smile. Her brother had never before in her whole life showed any interest towards her.

“Ah, maybe your right. I haven’t been the best big brother for you always, but you know, I’ve grown up since those days.”

Kagura looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Seriously, Kamui?” she mocked.

“Well, you have every right to doubt me, but just listen me out for a moment.” Kamui took a deep breath and continued talking without giving Kagura an opportunity to say anything. “I know I haven’t treated you well in the past, but after all, you’re my sister. We share the same blood and it is the strongest kind of bond. I have finally realized how meaningful that bond is.” Kamui’s eyes were fixed to Kagura’s. That moment, they looked very alike; their ocean blue eyes mirroring each other. “Believe or not, Kagura, I care about you. When I realized that you’re all alone on this funny little planet going through all those changes in your body… I just wanted to come and check on you.”

“I’m not alone.” Kagura said quietly. “I have Gin-chan and Shin-chan and –“

“You have all those people and none of them can understand what you are going through.”

Kagura fell silent. Kamui had hit the jackpot.

“I can understand,” he then continued. “I have been through those horrible years when you feel confused and your body doesn’t seem to follow you.” Kamui put his hand on Kagura’s shoulder and lowered his tone. “I know what it is like, when you can’t hear or see anything from your blood lust. I can help you to control yourself. I can help you to enjoy yourself. I can help you to use your powers.”

Kagura stared at her brother and tried to get the hold of the turmoil of feelings Kamui had just initiated inside her. Everything he said was something Kagura had been aching to hear. All those feelings that she had been so afraid of. All the long nights she had lied awake in the darkness of her closet after her dreams. _Kamui knew._ Kagura was perfectly aware that Kamui was a master in the arts of lying and manipulation, but a part – a big part – of her just wanted to believe him. _Kamui knew. Kamui was her blood. Kamui was her brother._ A barely recognizable sparkle of hope in Kagura’s expression gave Kamui a reason to continue.

“We could travel together, Kagura. I could show you places and teach you how to fight. I bet you cannot fight here as much as you should – as much as would be good for you.”

Kagura felt her breath sharpen and excitement grow, but tried to keep her exterior cool. “Kamui, I don’t know if I can leave. My whole life is here…” But saying those words aloud brought back all the thoughts that she had just gone through. Was her life really here? Did she really belong here? Would she find her place in life if she traveled with her brother?

Kamui didn’t say anything. She studied Kagura’s face as she finished her thought.

“Where would we go then?”

“Wherever you’d want to go!” Kamui laughed. “I have friends in many places. We could start with Harusame—“

“I don’t want anything to do with bad people.”

“They’re not all so bad. You’ll find many people you’ll like once you meet them. And if you don’t like them, I guess we can try something else. I’m not really tied to anybody.”

Kagura nodded slowly. She wanted to believe her brother’s words so hard she was aching. She would finally have someone to help with her thoughts. Kamui would understand what she was going through. Kamui could be the big brother Gin-chan had tried to be.

“Kagura, you’re not meant to stay in here where people don’t appreciate you as you are. Your friends care about you, but they can’t understand you. They want to change you into one of them. They don’t see the beauty of you the way you are,” Kamui said. Kagura couldn’t help herself anymore and her eyes were getting teary. “Kagura, you have to understand that there is nothing wrong at being who you are, being a Yato. We are hunters and killers, it is in our blood. We have to use our abilities or we wither away. We were born to fight and fighting is what makes us beautiful. You were born to fight and you are beautiful.”

Kagura sank into her brother’s blue eyes when she listened to him. Kamui reached towards her to dry a tear from her cheek. His touch was tender and his eyes were warm.

“Would you really take me with you?” Kagura asked hesitantly.

“Of course I would! You’re my baby sister and I’m here for you now, when nobody else is.” Kamui searched Kagura’s eyes for reaction.

Nobody else is… Isn’t Gin-chan worried? Is he looking for me? And Okita… Kagura tried to fight her tears.

“Now, now…” Kamui murmured into her ear. “Everything will be fine. You’ll just come with me and everything will be fine.”

Kagura raised her eyes and noticed how alert Kamui suddenly was. She followed Kamui’s gaze and realized that there were a lot of people gathered to the base of the TV-tower. Police cars with Shinsegumi members, hostesses in their radiant kimonos and okamas in their even more radiant kimonos. And Sadaharu was barking – she could hear it clearly now when she concentrated – and on Sadaharu’s back Shinpachi waved his hands. Kagura’s eyes lit up as she recognized more and more of her friends. “Everyone…” She mumbledand stared down.

Kamui took one look at her sister before making his decision. Then with a one shift movement he knocked her out and scooped her over his shoulder. “Oh bugger,” he muttered. “I was so close to winning her over.” Then the usual smile lit his face again. “What the heck, I’m just gonna tell her that they were trying to lock her up in a prison or something when she wakes up in my ship.” He reached for his pocket and when he pulled out his hand, he had a small blue pill in his fingers. “Good thing I came prepared. This little thing will keep you asleep long enough.” He jumped down from the antenna to the landing below them and swiftly continued to the roof. “I need to make my exit now,” he muttered when the door to the stairs suddenly opened.

There were three men standing in front of him. Three angry men.

 

_#_

 

Okita inhaled sharply when the light from the opened door flooded on his face. He noticed Kagura’s body on Kamui’s shoulder at once. _Unconscious_ , he told himself. Okita sensed how Gintoki tensed on his right side. Hijikata had stayed back and lit his cigarette leaning to the wall. His eyes followed the situation carefully.

“Oh dear, we were just leaving” Kamui said in his cheerful voice. “It would have been lovely to stay for a bit longer, but you see, Kagura was very tired and fell asleep…”

“You piece of shit,” Okita snarled. “You obviously knocked her out.” Okita pointed at the bump in her head.

“Oh well, even if I did, it was definitely for her own best.” Kamui knocked his head and smiled. “And now, if you won’t mind, I really got to get going.” Kamui watched as Okita revealed his blade and Gintoki placed his hand on his bokutou. The smile lingered on Kamui’s lips still a moment longer before he sighed and lowered his head. “I guess it cannot be helped then,” he said.

When he raised his head again, he was not the same person. His eyes were wide and glowing with excitement. A dangerous grin had taken over his usual agreeable smile. He jumped quickly backwards and placed Kagura from his shoulder to the edge of the roof behind him. Then he slowly walked back to face the two samurai.

Okita watched his enemy carefully. Kamui’s stance was firm and his body relaxed. He showed neither signs of weaknesses nor tension, but Okita knew he could launch himself on them faster than he could blink. Everything in him exuded confidence. Kamui didn’t have his umbrella with him. _What’s his choice of weapon now?_ Okita found himself wondering. From the corner of his eye, Okita followed Gintoki who also was brimming with incredible calmness and confidence. Okita had never clashed swords with the samurai and he was glad to be on the same side with him at this kind of crucial moment because in ways, Gintoki looked even more frightening than Kamui. Okita was unsure whether either of them would stand a chance against the Yato alone, but together they might be able to break his defense.

First stars were lighting in the night sky as shadows filled the roof. Okita could barely distinguish the sounds of people gathering below them. The blue lights from the police cars reflected from the nearby buildings, but most of the noise didn’t make it to the roof which stayed silent in the dimming evening. Okita stared at the enemy and concentrated. He needed to be able to react the moment Kamui attacked or he’d be dead.

And Kamui attacked. He took a strong leap to the air and reached for two small blades that had been hidden in the back of his clothes. Okita and Gintoki moved against him in unison as he came to them whirling in the air. _Fast!_ Okita thought, as Kamui shot past them. Gintoki’s eyes were raised towards his own forehead and Okita noticed two silver curls in front of him floating towards the ground. Was it a glint of annoyance he just noticed in Danna’s lazy eyes? He had no time to think about it as he took a stance to confront Kamui’s next attack. He slashed with precision and speed, but his blade couldn’t reach the Yato.

Gintoki glanced from the opponent to his bokutou. “Hey Mayo-lover. Would you mind?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Hijikata smirked as he tossed his katana towards Gintoki.

Kamui let out a laugh. “Can I assume that you are taking me seriously? Then I might as well fight seriously.” He grinned a wolfish, evil smile in the night and was on the move again. This time their defense was sharper. Okita’s eyes were beginning to accommodate to Kamui’s speed. Kamui was incredibly fast, but was he fast enough to take on the two of them?

The three figures danced elegantly in the night. Slowly Okita and Gintoki started to sync their movements, to learn the ways of the other samurai. They both knew they wouldn’t be strong enough unless they were able to fight in unison, so they tried to keep the fight slow in order to win some time and study each other. Kamui, however, did not give them any time as he rushed into fast attacks. Okita met Kamui’s eyes and froze. _Kagura’s eyes!_

 _Too slow, damn, I’m too slow,_ Okita cursed in his mind when he barely dodged the small blade Kamui was driving towards him. He tried to clear his head but Kamui’s eyes were haunting him. They just weren’t Kamui’s eyes, they were Kagura’s. He had witnessed the same look in Kagura’s eyes many times. The joy of fight, the lust for blood.

“Sougo!” Gintoki’s voice echoed in the night but it was too late. Kamui had changed the direction of his attack the moment he had dodged. Okita’s eyes widened as a sharp pain traveled through his nerves. A spray of blood wet his face and shoulder. He turned his head and forced himself to meet Kamui’s frightening eyes. _I’m not fighting against Kagura,_ he told himself. _I’m fighting against everything that is trying to take her away from me._

“Sougo!” Gintoki shouted again sharply, snapping Okita out of his thoughts.

Okita’s eyes registered every muscle in Gintoki’s body predicting his next movement. When Gintoki finally charged towards the opponent, Okita knew perfectly where to go. Both of them lunged at Kamui simultaneously and their opponent was only barely able to dodge. Okita felt a stinging pain in his shoulder when he swung his blade but nevertheless he had a smile on his lips. They were starting to get a hang of this.

When their rhythm started syncing, the pace of their battle started increasing. In unison the two of them were gaining speed. Okita cursed himself for his blunder that had led to the gaping wound in his shoulder. If only Kagura and Kamui weren’t so alike, this would be easier. He glanced at Kagura sleeping peacefully behind Kamui’s back. Her chest was rising and falling in the rhythm of her steady, slow breathing. She looked tranquil and beautiful in the evening lights, the red glow from the Kabukicho district throwing sparks at her red hair. For one blink, Okita was back in the warehouse, running away from the girl he had just hurt. _No, don’t go there, not now._ He tried to tear his eyes away from Kagura and from the image in his mind, but an uncomfortable feeling of disorientation did not dissipate. _Damn, I’m not up for this fight._ Yet, he was able to follow Gintoki’s lead when the samurai pushed forward to meet their opponents speed in the battle. Something in the way Gintoki took the lead told Sougo that the more experienced fighter could sense his shakiness. _Thanks Danna._

Okita did his best to keep up with the fight but his wandering mind kept dragging him down. _Shit._ Kamui was probably the most skilled opponent he had ever faced in a serious fight and he couldn’t win the fight like this. _How can I concentrate? How can I fix things so that I can concentrate in the fight again?_ Okita’s mind circulated around the thought and finally he reached a conclusion. It was a farfetched try, but it had to do for now.

“Hijikata-san, can you keep him busy for me for a second?” Okita asked. “I have to change a few words with China there.”

“Whaddaya mean change--? The girl’s unconscious!” Hijikata shouted, but Okita silenced him quickly.

“Don’t get stuck with the irrelevancies, Hijikata-san. Just give me a hand, would you?” Okita did not even look at his direction when he tossed his sword to his confused superior officer.

The fact that Okita asked for any kind of favor from Hijikata definitely confused him, but it would never slow him down. Okita had calculated correctly: Kamui could not hold all of them back. The moment Gintoki’s and Hijikata’s eyes met, they were on a different stage. They knew how to fight together. When they charged at Kamui, Okita could easily find an opening and sprinted towards Kagura. He kneeled over the sleeping figure and carefully caressed her peaceful face. _I have to clear my mind._

Okita took a moment to catch his breath after the intense fight and tried to gather courage to speak up. He knew what he had to say, but it wasn’t easy. In his whole life, Okita had ever opened his heart to one person only. Words cruised in his mind as he tried to make his lips pronounce them.

“Kagura,” he finally spoke and took a deep breath. His voice was trembling only a little. “Kagura,” he repeated with softer and more confident voice. ”I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I never meant to hurt you – I don’t know what happened,” he blurted out. The fact that Kagura was fast asleep made the situation both weird as hell and surprisingly easy. The first words had been the difficult ones, rest would be easier.

Okita took Kagura’s hand into his own. Without the usual strength in her fists, her hands felt small and fragile. “I guess I just couldn’t stand the image of you and that other man.” Okita listened Kagura’s breathing and the increasing speed of the two swords clashing with Kamui’s blades. “You look so beautiful, Kagura, you really do. And it’s so funny because you hardly ever look beautiful when you’re awake. I mean, sure you look beautiful in your own way, you always do…”

 _What am I babbling on? That’s pretty far from a compliment._ Okita gathered his thoughts once more and continued.

“I thought I could keep myself away from you, but… I mean… Because I was afraid. I was afraid you would leave me. The risk, the risk was just too much for me. But, you know. Even if I tried to keep myself away from you, Kagura, I doesn’t work. I know it now. And I’m so sorry I fucked up everything trying.”

Okita paused. If Kagura was awake, what would she say? Will he ever find out? “Kagura, I’m sorry I couldn’t say this sooner, but… but… I’m completely in love with you.” He pressed a soft kiss against her lips. She was still motionless, only her chest rising and falling in the rhythm of her breathing.

“Okita, grab her and go!” Hijikata yelled at him. “We can keep this bastard busy enough for you to get her to safety.”

Okita glanced at them and met Gintoki’s eyes. In his eyes Okita saw the challenge he needed. “No. I’m gonna win this fight.”

“Idiot, you’re injured!” Hijikata insisted. “Just grab the girl and go!”

“Give him the sword, Mayo-lover,” Gintoki suddenly said. “He needs to fight.”

“Yes, I need to fight.” Okita turned once more to look at Kagura. “Kagura, I’m going to fight against everything that has made your life such hell. You’re not a killer, Kagura. I’m going to fight against the killer that is trying to take control over you and I’m going to win.”

Symbolically, this was exactly what Okita was going to do. Kamui reminded him of Kagura, but he did not remind him of the Kagura that he was in love with. He represented everything that he wanted to protect Kagura from. Even if it was within Kagura herself, he was going to protect her from it. When Okita felt the steel of his blades in his hand again, he was a different man than before.

As Okita rejoined the battle, he now took a clear lead. His slashes were fast and focused as he pushed forward against his opponent. He sensed that Gintoki watched his back all the time, but he was thankful for the space he was given. _This fight is mine._

Okita’s eyes darkened by the rage inside him and he started to feel how all his senses sharpened. He could now see Kamui clearly. He no longer felt the pain in his shoulder – adrenalin had taken over him completely – and he pressed heavily forward. Okita took a steady stance as he waited Kamui to charge towards him. When the attack came, he knew were to slash.

Kamui charged past him and stopped with a surprised look on his face. He slowly touched his cheek with his hands and watched his bloody fingers. His eyes met Okita’s ice-cold stare. The whole moment took only milliseconds, but in the middle of the battle it felt like hours to them. Staring at the eyes of your opponent – a true opponent that should be taken seriously.

Suddenly Kamui turned his face towards the night sky and Okita heard a humming sound of an aircraft closing in. It was a small and agile aircraft hovering over them. “Ah, I was starting to feel that three against one in a fight is not so fair after all,” Kamui laughed.

Okita’s eyes widened as he followed how two figures jumped down from the air craft.

“We are not here to fight your battles, Kamui,” said a cold voice. Takasugi Shinsuke’s one visible eye flashed in the lights of the roof. “Personally I’m not so into stealing enemy’s assets, anyway, and I’m pretty sure that no little girl can be valuable enough to risk your life with this man.” He knocked his head towards Gintoki, who was staring at him motionless. “Still, if you want to fight them, I’m happy to keep the others busy while you finish the first boy. After all, three against one is a little bit overboard even for you...”

The word ‘boy’ rang in Okita’s ears.

“Takasugi,” Gintoki said with a low voice, his eyes serious for once.

Hijikata was measuring the third man with his eyes. Bansai stood in front of him with his hands in his pockets and an uninterested look on his face. Hijikata glanced at Gintoki’s bokutou in his hand unhappily.

Kamui smiled cheerfully. “I’m perfectly fine with taking them down on my own one by one. Just watch my back for a moment.”

Okita didn’t use any more time to assess his surroundings. His full focus was in the red haired man in front of him. Okita knew he had to end this quickly if he wanted to win. He knew his limitations. Okita felt power surging through his veins as he took his stance. He had to overcome Kamui’s speed if he wanted to win the fight. Okita’s eyes were glowing red and his face was covered in blood as he charged forward. Kamui’s two small blades blocked the path of his sword with ease. _Too slow. I’m still too slow._ Kamui’s incredible Yato strength combined with his speed placed him far above his class, but there was something that gave Okita the leverage he needed. Kamui was fighting for fun while Okita was ready to risk everything.

The next attack came fast. Okita started to move when he realized it was too late to dodge. Too late to dodge but… He felt how the small blade dug into the aching flesh of his injured shoulder. He screamed in pain but to Kamui’s surprise, he threw himself on him driving the blade deeper into his own flesh. Suddenly, Kamui’s eyes widened in shock as Okita’s katana pierced through his stomach. The two figures leaned against each other, the small blade deep in Okita’s shoulder and the katana impaling Kamui’s stomach.

“You are one crazy guy,” Kamui said quietly. “You have the wild look in your eyes, too. Just like me. Just like her.” His breathing was harsh as blood from his wound dribbled on the roof. He glanced at Kagura, who still lied unconsciously on the edge of the roof. “Don’t worry, crazy boy. She’ll wake up in a couple of hours.”

Okita took a step back and pulled out his katana. The dripping blood gleamed in the dim light of the night. Kamui sank to his knees. Okita glanced around him and noticed that the others were standing still, watching them. Gintoki and Takasugi stood in fighting stances, as if they had actually been engaging in some kind of activity whereas Hijikata and Bansai were now both leaning to the wall their hands in their pockets.

“It is not your fight,” Gintoki said to Takasugi, who was eyeing Okita warily. “Take him and go.”

“Yes, as much as I’d love to clash swords with you, this is neither the right time nor the right reason,” Takasugi answered.

Bansai walked over to Kamui and picked the light man easily on his shoulder. The small aircraft leveled next to the roof and Bansai jumped through the open door. Takasugi gave the roof one last glance before jumping. Soon the low humming noise of the aircraft was gone.

Okita pressed the wound in his shoulder as he walked to Kagura and kneeled next to her. He was so tired his vision was starting to blur. _How can she look so peaceful in the middle of all this?_ Okita rested his head against Kagura’s forehead and felt Kagura’s steady breathing on his lips.

“For once I was a real prince and saved you, and you weren’t even awake to witness it.”             


	11. Sometimes You Hope You Can Change Things but You Can't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks fo everyone so much for the comments! :) They definitely gave me the motivation to finish this chapter sooner.

When Okita woke up, he couldn’t first recognize where he was. The room was unfamiliar and the futon hard. Somehow though, the place smelled like something he knew – he just couldn’t quite place his finger on it. He tentatively tried to move his left arm and grimaced at the sharp pain that shot through his shoulder and chest on the slightest movement. _Shit._ That bastard had gotten him well enough. Okita cursed in his mind and tried to get the feel of the rest of his body. He was tired. His body felt so god damn tired. Incredibly tired. All the sleepless nights, all the worrying and then the fight. The memory of the fight flickered in Okita’s mind. The speed, the rhythm of a real warrior, the darkness of the night and the astounding state of mind he had reached. It had been such a long time since he had last fought like that.

A faint smile slowly crept on Okita’s lips. _I won. I fought against Kamui and I won._ Well, he had had plenty of back up from Gintoki and Hijikata, so in that sense it might not be quite fair to say he actually won, but nevertheless, this was a new and fine feather in his cap. _I fought against a strong Yato, and I won._

Okita stretched his hearing when he distinguished words from the other side of the closed door. All noises carried through the thin walls like there was no walls in the first place. _Yorozuya_ , he thought and listened how familiar voiced bubbled in the midst of a cheerful conversation. Why was he sleeping at Yorozuya?

“Jeez, I wish I would’ve seen the whole thing!”

Kagura’s annoyed voice reached him and he winced. _Kagura._ He remembered the roof, how easy it had been to talk to the sleeping girl. But to be forced to do it again when she could hear her… Okita sighed. He didn’t talk to people. That’s not how he rolled. He didn’t even remember how to speak to people anymore – so long it had been since he last had opened himself to anyone. So long it had been since Mitsuba had died.

A small and extremely annoying thought made its way into his mind. _Maybe, just maybe, if I would’ve been able to talk to her… Just maybe, things might have ended up differently. If I just had opened my mouth and explained what I felt…_ Okita shuddered and winced at the pain it caused. Explained how he felt? Bullshit.

Okita registered light footsteps from the other side of the door, drawing closer and closer. He panicked and shut his eyes. He wasn’t ready to face anyone, not now, so pretending to be asleep seemed like a legitimate solution. He heard the door opening slowly and the footsteps continued as someone entered the room. As the person came closer and sat next to him, he could smell her. _Kagura._ He could have recognized her scent anywhere. It was different from anyone else he knew. Fresh like a flower field after rain, spiced up with something oriental and finally completely drowned in sukonbu.

Kagura gently shifted the sheets that were covering his chest and Okita felt the chill of the autumn air on his bare skin. Then Kagura started to peel of the bandages from his shoulder and it took all his strength to keep on his relaxed sleeping face when the pain hit him. _Has Kagura been nursing me?_ Okita’s naked chest shivered at the touch of Kagura’s fingers.

“You’re not so clever, you know, letting that stupid brother of mine to stab you in the shoulder.” Kagura mumbled by herself as she started rinsing his wound. “The shoulder is really ugly now, uhuh. Idiot, getting stabbed twice in the same place…” Despite her insulting words her tone was soft and gentle.

“When are you going to wake up, Sadist? You’ve been sleeping for two days now… I thought I was the one who was supposed to be drugged and everything.”

Okita listened in silence when Kagura babbled on. Her soft tone was unfamiliar to him and he decided instantly he liked it. Talking like that, Kagura felt more… caring. This was the first time Okita had heard the softness in her voice when she was speaking to him although he knew that Kagura could speak fondly of Sadaharu and sometimes of her father. Sometimes she even used this soft tone when talking about Danna or Four-Eyes – a fact that had always caused minor stings on jealousy in Okita’s mind – but never before had she talked of him like this.

“You know, I really don’t understand you…”

Okita swallowed hard when he heard the words. This was an ugly way of eavesdropping. Maybe he should wake up now. He should wake up now and stop this stupid act. But his eyes didn’t open and his limbs didn’t move and all in all he stayed silent as dead.

“I mean, you know. I can’t get it at all. I—I thought… I thought we were good and we were having fun together. But I guess I was wrong.”

Okita heard the shakiness of her voice and knew that if he just opened his eyes he could see tears forming in her eyes. But he kept his eyes shut and fought to keep his breathing calm. Kagura was washing his wound with a wet cloth and his shoulder burnt with every single touch.

“I really thought you weren’t coming for me… You or Gin-chan or anyone,” Kagura continued absentmindedly. “And Kamui… Even though I know his a stupid and lying brother, his still my brother. Everything he said… It felt so good to hear the words, you know. The words that no one ever says to me.”

“But still, you know, even if I was mad at you and mad at Gin-chan… I was still really glad when I saw you.”

Okita let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in. For a moment he had been really afraid – really afraid that he had actually stole something precious from Kagura when he had fought Kamui. What right did they have to decide that she was to stay here? The thought hadn’t even crossed Okita’s mind, not in all the hurry when they were looking for Kagura, but what if… What if Kagura actually wanted to go with Kamui? From his perspective and from Danna’s perspective Kamui was the bad guy, but how did he look like from Kagura’s perspective?

“Sougo…” Kagura said softly and his name on her lips caressed Okita’s mind. “Do you think I can ever belong here? Do you think I would be better off somewhere else? Sometimes I’m just so lost.”

Her words pained Okita more than her hands working with his shoulder. Okita wanted take her hand, to take her in his arms, to caress her hair softly and assure her that everything would be fine. That together they could solve these problems and together they could fight everything bad that Kagura was facing. He wanted to tell her, that he could be by her side, helping and protecting her better than any brother, but even if his mind was filled with thoughts of tenderness and care, his body stayed silent. He didn’t move an inch. Instead, he listened as Kagura rose up and walked to the door.

“Sougo…” she said silently before opening the door. “I don’t think I belong here. Maybe I should go. I could go and fight alongside pappy. Somewhere in there.” Sougo knew she was looking up, or maybe staring at the night sky through the small window. “Maybe I could find my place there… Because in here…” Kagura fell silent in the middle of her sentence and sighed. “In here I just hurt people. I hurt whoever I fight and I hurt Gin-chan, because he wants to help me but he can’t… And I hurt you… I broke our deal and hurt you.”

When she had closed the door behind her, Okita opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. The bandages on his shoulder smelled clean. _I was hurt, but it was my own fault. None of it was your fault, Kagura._

#

 

Eventually Okita had to wake up and so he gathered up his clothes and left Yorozuya behind him. And when he left, it was somehow very difficult to talk to Kagura or even to look her in the eyes. He was embarrassed and he had nothing to say – or maybe he had too much to say. Be the case whichever, it was impossible to say anything, so Okita just quietly thanked everyone and fled the building. He had to – it was very difficult to even look at Kagura, to see her confused or embarrassed expression, or to see how difficult for her it seemed to be just to stay in the same room with him. So he fled like a criminal even though he was supposed to be the hero.

The injury in Okita’s shoulder proved to be a difficult one. The flesh had been teared open so roughly that stitching the wound up had been almost impossible and now it was extremely important to give his hand a long rest. And resting meant no swords. So obviously the injury prevented their training – not that either of them would have brought it up in the first place. They didn’t feel comfortable together anymore. Not with their elephant sized issues hastily swept under the carpet but still screaming for attention. The attention that neither of them was going to give. Neither of them seemed to know how.

Of course, Okita’s view of the whole issue had turned quite black-and-white. He had screwed things up and the girl he loved – finally realized that he actually loved – was already lost to him. Kagura clearly longed for something he couldn’t give her. The simple life on Earth would not be enough. Maybe he had overstepped his limits when he had stopped Kamui from taking her. Maybe, just maybe… Maybe it would really be better for Kagura to be with someone who could understand her. To be with her father or even with Kamui. What were his chances of making her happy?

“Sougo, what’s your progress with the strategy?”

Okita started at the question, blinking his eyes and trying to position himself. Shinsengumi meeting room. Everyone staring at him. Question asked. What was the question? His poker face did not falter as his mind came to the conclusion that he had absolutely no idea of the question that had been asked.

Kondo raised an eyebrow and repeated: “Sougo, progress with the strategy?”

“Yes, Kondo-san, the strategy,” he quickly covered. Since he couldn’t go to the field until the shoulder had healed sufficiently, he had been given the tedious task of formulating the strategy for an upcoming drug raid. He could do it, of course, but he didn’t enjoy it and thus he hadn’t paid much attention to it.

Okita coughed up a little and conjured up a deliberately bored look on his face. “Yes, Zaki here have been collecting some valuable intel and we are on our way with the strategy.” He yawned and noticed Yamazaki nodding his head vigorously, probably thinking that Okita needed some kind of backup. Obviously, he hadn’t done shit with the strategy. His head had been quite preoccupied with other things.

“Any details?” Kondo asked.

“I’ll share when it’s ready.”

Kondo gave Okita a thoughtful look, but then decided to let it slide.

“But sure you can brief us with something?” Hijikata started irritably but Kondo silenced him with one look.

Okita shrugged and glanced at Hijikata with a boring look on his face saying _“look at all the fucks I give”_ before letting himself slide back to his thoughts.

 _If I can’t make her happy then it’s better to let her go. If I really love her, I should care more about her happiness than mine._ Okita cursed himself and he cursed chivalry in general and he cursed his selfishness. Damn right he didn’t want to let Kagura go with her father and it was purely because he wanted to keep her close. He had found something he wanted to have, after all these years, and he didn’t want to give it up, not now. But you couldn’t take a lion cub home with you and pretend it was just a regular kitten forever, could you? Eventually it will grow. It will always grow. And it’s not like Kagura hadn’t grown already. That was exactly what all of them had done when Kagura had appeared into their lives. Pretended that the lion cub would stay as the kitten they loved forever.

The meeting room started to empty and Okita stretched his arms. He felt Kondo’s eyes on him already before the commander spoke any words.

“Sougo, can I have a word with you?” Kondo asked with an annoyingly concerned look on his face.

Okita followed him into the adjacent room without a word.

“You’ve been distracted,” Kondo said once they were alone.

“Have I?”

Kondo’s eyes softened and he tried to find good words. “Ah, Sougo, drop the act. You know you don’t have to do that with me.”

“Sorry, Kondo-san,” Okita answered at once. It was true. Kondo knew him too well.

“So is it really that irreparable?”

Okita raised his eyebrows. Their gorilla of a commander sure seemed stupid often but he had his moments.

Kondo sighed. “It’s not like I don’t hear things. We have our connections. Toshi hears things from Yorozuya Danna and I hear things from Otae-san—“

“No you don’t. There’s no such connection, Kondo-san.”

“There will be. I’m getting closer to it all the time. There definitely will be such a connection in the near future!” Kondo beamed. “But the point was,” he continued, coughing a little, “the point was, that I hear things and I can see things just by looking at you. You are distracted and I know it’s not only because of your shoulder. So I ask again: Is it really that irreparable?”

Okita pondered his response for a moment and then decided to swallow every mocking comment he had in his mind and go for the truth instead.

“I think it is.” He wanted to avert his eyes so that he didn’t have to face Kondo who looked more and more miserable every second.

“There’s nothing I would hope more than to see you happy, Sougo,” Kondo said with a soft, fatherly voice.

“I’m sorry, Kondo-san, but the price of my happiness would be her unhappiness. And of course also heavily compromising our national security. I think it is for everyone’s best, if Kagura decides to leave Earth with her father. There’s nothing I can do.”

The words that came out of his mouth hurt like hell. Saying it out loud made it so much more real and now this reality was banging against his head with all its force.

“Kondo-san, if you excuse me,” he said rushing out of the room. He needed to be alone.

Once he had found a small, empty room and locked the door tightly behind him he sank to his knees and hit his fist to the floor. Even if he knew it had to go like this, it didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like hell.


	12. Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for everyone who has left me kudos and incredibly encouraging and helpful comments! I'm finally approaching the end of this story this chapter being the last but one!! And I'm giving a small warning already - there might be a slight delay before the last chapter because I just have to get it right. I'm trying to get it out next weekend though. :)

_“Pappy, how are you? Is you thinning hair well? I hope it is thin as ever! Have you been visiting any exiting places lately? If you have, please bring me souvenirs!_

_Pappy, I’ve been thinking… if I would come with you, would it be okay? I still love Earth, don’t get me wrong, but my life here is getting a little difficult. I would be very sad to leave everyone behind and I think they would miss me, but I don’t know if I can really stay here anymore. Things have happened… So what do you think?_

_Love, Kagura.”_

Kagura stared at the words and tapped the tip of the pencil against the table. She folded the paper in two and slid it into an envelope. _Now it’s finally done._ She had postponed writing the letter long enough already.

 

#

 

Gintoki sat behind his desk, his legs comfortably on the table, reading Jump when Kagura rushed outside with a letter in her hand. Gintoki wasn’t quite sure how he knew – maybe it was the determination of her steps or the wistful look on her face – but he knew that she had made her decision. He stared at the closed door when Shinpachi emerged from the kitchen.

“Gin-san, what do you think is going to happen?”

“How would I know? I’m not a fortune teller.”

“But Gin-san,” Shinpachi said, worried, “what do we do if she decides to go?”

“We do nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing? You can’t say that! We should stop her! She’s not going to be alright in there alone.”

“It’s not our decision, Shinpachi-kun. If she decides to go, it’s her decision and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Gin-san, you can’t mean it…” Shinpachi let himself slump on the couch. “You can’t mean there’s nothing we can do.”

Gintoki sighed. This was clearly difficult for Shinpachi and that was how it was supposed to be. Shinpachi was a caring boy who had worked with Kagura for years and grown to love her like a sister. Of course it was difficult.

“Shinpachi-kun,” Gintoki said. “I know it’s not easy, but we shouldn’t try to affect her decision. It must be difficult enough for her already as it is.”

Shinpachi looked helpless when he tried to come up with some kind of counterargument, anything to change the inevitable facts. Then he took a long, deep breath. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m being selfish,” he said. His whole being was defeated. “I just can’t imagine Yorozuya without her.”

Gintoki raised his eyes towards the ceiling. “That’s how life goes.”

Gintoki lifted the magazine in front of his eyes and continued flipping the pages in slow pace. It’s not like he was reading though. It’s not like really saw the pictures and words in front of him although he was staring right at them. And it’s not like it would have been possible to concentrate to anything with all the memories filling his head. There was so much joy and laughter in those memories, and some tears and some pain, and all the other feelings that anyone could ever imagine. So much love.

 _Tsch, I can’t believe that I’m feeling so emotional for that stupid kid,_ he thought but he couldn’t stop the smile that was suddenly taking over his face. The warm feeling spreading from his chest when he thought of Kagura combined to the fact that he might have to let her go was way too much to feel for a single person. It was way too much and it made him want to laugh and cry at the same time, to relive all the amazing moments he had shared with Kagura – all those lazy mornings and incredible battles, all those days when he had watched her grow up. The idea of having to watch as she boarded a giant space ship was painful. It was painful as hell.

But deep down, somewhere in a place that he didn’t show to Shinpachi or anyone else, Gintoki hoped that Kagura would choose to go. Even if it meant losing her and even if Kagura would be terribly unhappy in the beginning, Gintoki knew that everyone would get over it. But if Kagura stayed… Gintoki sighed. He had promised to Kagura that he would take care of her. He had promised that he would help her and solve her problems with her, but the fact was… The fact was that he had no idea how to help her anymore. He didn’t know what she was going through. He didn’t know how it felt to have that kind of bloodlust running through his veins. He had never experienced anything like it. And he had tried to understand. He had tried to talk and tried to help and tried to understand. He had done everything that he possibly could, anything that was within his power, and still he couldn’t help her. So maybe it was finally time to give up. Maybe he should finally give up.

Looking through someone else’s eyes, Gintoki looked just like usual. He was leaning back on his chair, flipping the pages of his magazine slowly forward, his feet casually lifted on the table. Maybe if that someone knew him really well, he might have noticed that the smile on his face was slightly absent and that his lazy fish eyes momentarily flickered with unusual emotionality. And if that someone had a really good eyesight, the kind that the only person in the room other that Gintoki didn’t have, that someone might have noticed the single tear that was first slowly forming in the corner of Gintoki’s left eye and then starting to descend down his cheek just to be abruptly stopped and swept off by an absentminded movement of his hand.

 

#

 

Clank, said the mailbox after it had swallowed Kagura’s letter. In her head, Kagura tried to calculate how many days it would take before the letter would reach pappy and before pappy would have time to reply to her. It wasn’t an easy calculation, and in fact, it was pretty much an impossible one, since the intergalactic mail was sometimes quite unpredictable and her father’s work was even harder to foresee. Nevertheless, Kagura was sure that the letter would reach pappy and that he would answer as fast as he could.

The day after that moment, the week after that day and the month after that week – they felt different. Wherever Kagura went, everything looked different. The trees in the park had never had such beautiful colors in them and the rustle of their leaves filled Kagura’s head with joy. She talked to squirrels and mice that were digging the dumpsters in the alleys and greeted everyone she knew and everyone she didn’t know with a big smile on her face. She walked into places she hardly never went because something was driving her. Something inside her was continuously telling her that she had to see everything once more before she– before she… _Before I leave,_ she completed the difficult thought and whipped up a smile on her face. She had decided that she wouldn’t cry over this, not now. She would have enough time to cry after she left. Now she was going to enjoy the few weeks she had left on this wonderful planet she loved so vigorously.

And so Kagura spent time with her friends, visited anego and Tsukki as often as she could, took Sadaharu running to the park, and every moment she experienced, she tried to fix and loge in her mind. Spending time with Gin-chan and Shin-chan – it was suddenly so easy that she could have cried of happiness. Somehow the terrible months that had followed each other had lost their weight over them and even though she had never mentioned that she was actually leaving, she knew that Gin-chan understood. So they did their best to enjoy their time together without thinking of the future too much and to their surprise, it was easy. The growing sadness inside Kagura’s chest had eaten up the rage that had controlled her life so strongly. And the relief she sometimes saw in Gintoki’s smile didn’t hurt her as much she thought it would.

There was one person though that Kagura’s mind instinctively avoided. She didn’t really pay attention to it, but she never wandered too close to the Shinsengumi compound. She subliminally avoided places and times when she could meet Okita. It wasn’t like… It wasn’t like anything had changed, not really. Or maybe something had.

Kagura had started to slowly see, why things probably went like they went. When she had decided to leave, she had finally acknowledged the fact that it was too dangerous for her to live here. That she was too dangerous. The painful realization hadn’t come alone: She suddenly saw how difficult it must have been to everyone around her. And she saw why Okita would choose to stay away from her.

Now, it was too late anyway. Pappy would come to her. And she would leave. Even if Okita begged her to stay, she would--. She halted the track of thought angrily. _It’s not like anything like that is going to happen! I know it, I know it, I know it, and there’s no point to even think of it._ Kagura pressed her eyes tightly shut and fisted her hands. She knew how idiotic her thoughts were and cursed them for existing in the first place. Because nothing was going to happen, not anymore.

They had met the other day, by accident.

> _Kagura was running down the street on her way home when Okita appeared from behind the corner of a building so suddenly that Kagura almost bumped into him. They had stared at each other for a moment, dumbfounded, before either of them found any words to say._
> 
> _“You shouldn’t be running like that, it’s dangerous,” Okita had finally said._
> 
> _How Kagura had hoped that there would have been any kind of sign of Okita’s usual playfulness, mocking tone or pure insults, but there was nothing. Okita was polite and smiled a little, and it felt so wrong. Like an alien had infested his body. And Kagura was very close from grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him until the real Sadist she knew would come out, but instead she had nodded, conjured up a tiny polite smile and asked:_
> 
> _“How’s your shoulder?”_
> 
> _“It’s getting better, though it’s healing quite slowly.”_
> 
> _And Kagura had nodded, her eyes already travelling the street behind Okita’s back, searching for an escape from the unnatural situation._
> 
> _“Well, I’m in a hurry, sort of,” she had lied._
> 
> _“Yeah, of course,” Okita had answered. “I should be on my way, too.”_
> 
> _“See you around.”_
> 
> _“Yeah, see you.”_

This was how they acted now if they met each other and Kagura saw that Okita was trying to distance himself from her. And she understood it perfectly. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore either. She kind of hoped that she could do something to restore their friendship before she went, though. In her mind she had been writing a letter to him – a letter in which she tried to explain herself and apologize for everything she had done – but she had never written a word of it.

 _If the time could just be so kind and heal the wounds. Our wounds. And my wounds_.

Kagura desperately hoped that eventually time would change the way she saw Okita now because now… Now the image of him, her childhood friend and first love, was muddled with the image of the man he had turned into in that warehouse. The way he had frightened her at that moment – it didn’t fade. Kagura had tried to forget it all, to push it out of her mind, but it didn’t happen. She couldn’t forget and her thoughts stayed confused and her image of Okita was not what it used to be. She didn’t know him anymore – not in the way she thought she knew him. The simplicity of their old relationship had vanished and Kagura didn’t understand what it had become. But she knew she had hurt him. She had broken his trust the moment she had raised her fists and revealed her knife against those men in the alley. When Okita had started to train her, there had been an agreement and by killing those men she had broken their agreement and his trust. Kagura knew she didn’t have any ways to repair it because whatever she did, she couldn’t change the fact that she was who she was. She couldn’t change the fact that it was only a matter of time that she would do something horrible again – break his trust again. There was no future for her in here.

The realization was too fucking painful to bear and so Kagura decided to banish it from her mind instead. She did her very best to enjoy everything she loved in Kabukicho and to forget everything else. She had to push herself a little, but it was for the best.

“Sadaharu,” Kagura whispered, leaning towards the large ears of the dog. “I’m so happy you are my friend, Sadaharu.”

They had wandered around the whole day without destination and now an endless sea was opening before them. The autumn day was brisk and the sand was decorated with the blazing reds and yellows of fallen leaves. The wind was mussing up Sadaharu’s fur as the dog was wading in the shallow water. Kagura rather stayed dry. The water was getting colder already.

“Sadaharu, do you think I’m doing the right thing?” she asked suddenly. “Because sometimes… Sometimes I feel like I failed. I failed and now I’m running.”

Sadaharu let out a silent groan.

“I just– I just mean… I failed the girl that I once was. I thought I would be able to live my life like I decided. I thought it was mine to decide. But my blood… My blood is just too strong. My Yato blood…”

Sadaharu knocked his head, sensing Kagura’s distress. His small whines were drowned in the rumbling of the waves. Kagura stayed silent for a long time and let the salty seawater get sprinkled on her face. She liked the fresh smell of the sea in the autumn.

After a while Sadaharu raised his muzzle from the water and barked two times decisively.

“Your right, Sadaharu,” Kagura answered at once. “Gin-chan and Shin-chan must be worried already. We should head home.”

Kagura hadn’t heard back from her father yet, but somehow she knew that the time for her goodbyes was almost finished.


	13. There's Only One Thing Left to Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the Final Chapter.

“Have you heard?” Gintoki asked.

“Heard what?” Okita said and sat down to an empty place next to Gintoki in a small ramen stand.

“Umibozu is coming for a visit.” The words and the tone were casual, but Okita knew Gintoki was carefully observing his reaction.

“Really? I hadn’t heard.” Okita stared at the bowl of ramen in front of him. He had the chopsticks in his hand, but suddenly he had lost his appetite.

“He’ll be here next week.”

“Kagura must be excited.”

“She is...” Gintoki said and sighed. “I don’t know if you can say excited.”

“Why so?” Okita asked.

“For the past few weeks, she’s been… Well, different. Almost like she’s saying her goodbyes.”

Gintoki’s words fell on him like rocks. He had known that this could happen. He had said it himself: It was for the best. Yet Gintoki’s words were icy and hard on him, bringing the reality closer and closer. _Was China really leaving?_

Okita forced his voice to stay calm. “Do you think she is planning to go with him?”

“Who knows…” Gintoki said and dug into the ramen in front of him.

Okita was sure that Danna knew or at least had a good guess, but he didn’t ask anything.

_China was leaving._

_China was leaving._

The thought kept banging inside his head. _I knew it could go like this,_ Okita told himself. _I knew it and I can take it. Dammit!_ The thought of Kagura leaving was suddenly mixed together with a distant memory of Mitsuba’s smiling face. Okita pressed his knuckles against his thigh. His fist was slowly turning white, but the pain in his thigh was what he needed. A distraction.

“Maybe it would be for the best, if she went…” Gintoki’s words brought Okita back. “It isn’t easy for her, living here. I thought I could make it all work somehow, but I don’t think it is something I can do. Not anymore”

Okita stared at the noodles in front of him. The soup was getting cold.

“Maybe Kagura needs to be somewhere on a battlefield. Maybe it was a dream that could never come true… That dream of hers… Being free of her Yato instincts…”

Okita looked up and was surprised by the pained look in Gintoki’s eyes. “Danna, you’ve done your best you know,” he said quietly. “Even if things didn’t work out in the end, you tried your best.”

Gintoki glanced at him, but Okita was staring at his food again.

“Eat your food, Souichirou-kun,” Gintoki said as he stood up from his seat. “Thank you for the food!” he said to the owner and left.

Okita sat silently. What was there anymore for him to do? If Kagura had decided to go, she had decided to go. He had absolutely no right to try to change anything. He had done enough harm already. _China…_ In front of his eyes, Okita saw the young girl who had decided to abandon her Yato instincts. She had always been something he wanted to protect. She wouldn’t need protection anymore. Not if she went down the path she was going to take. She would be soon incredibly strong, just like her brother. _To protect…_ Kagura would be stronger than him in no time and the thought that he still could somehow protect her was absurd. It was downright crazy and yet… yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that Kagura needed protection.

“Why don’t you eat your food, officer?” asked the owner of the ramen shop. “Wasting your food is not helping you or your girl.”

Okita picked up his chopsticks. “You’re right. Sorry, gramps, for letting it cool down.”

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” the owner said smiling. “You know, officer, sometimes things that are messy and complicated can look quite simple if you just try to view them from a different angle.”

Okita stared at the wrinkled face of the shop owner.

“Though this is just some old man’s babbling…” The owner continued, absentmindedly.

Okita put down his chopsticks and stood up. “Thank you for the food!” He said quickly although he hadn’t even touched the bowl and left. He had to do something.

 

#

 

The old Kabukicho TV tower casted a long shadow in the light of the soon-to-be-setting sun. Okita tried to see to the top, but it was impossible for him to distinguish anything from that far. He found his way in to the hall and walked to the elevator. The lights were down and pressing the buttons gave no reaction. Someone had finally cut the electricity from the building. Okita sighed and started climbing the stairs slowly. 61 floors, he remembered counting last time.

Okita didn’t know if he would find what he was looking for. He didn’t know if he could do anything once he was on the top of the tower. He only hoped he could, and even the mere hope was enough to make him climb. As he passed doors after doors and landings after landings, his mind trailed back to the night he had fought Kamui. He remembered the way Kagura had looked as clearly as if it was yesterday. Sleeping peacefully with no notion of the battle around her. _Something to protect,_ rang in Okita’s mind. That night, there hadn’t been anything more important than to protect Kagura.

An annoying voice was nagging in the back of his mind. _You say you protect,_ the voice said. _You protect like you protected in that warehouse?_ Okita winced. _What kind of protection was that?_ the voice continued mercilessly. _Hurting her when she was in the most vulnerable state._

“Shut up,” Okita said, accidentally out loud. _I didn’t, I didn’t want to… I wanted to protect…_

Steadily Okita climbed upwards. He was reaching the skies just like Kagura always wanted to. On the top of the tallest building of Kabukicho he would be closer to the sky. He would be further away from the ground. He would be closer to Mitsuba. _Sis’ would never want to see me hurt anyone,_ he thought and a pain in his chest grew stronger.

Okita opened the door to the roof and stepped into the light again. He glanced around and noted how different the roof looked in the sunlight. In the darkness, he had hardly seen anything. Now he noticed the gray and worn out color of the roof and the nets that were circling around the edges. _Nets._ Nets to keep people from jumping. Nets that now were full of holes because after the building had been abandoned, no one had repaired them. A successive jumper left a hole. Okita shuddered at the thought. _What would it take to be desperate enough to jump down from here_? Okita shook his head, walked to the antenna in the middle of the roof, and looked up.

Okita took a sharp breath, baffled by the sudden beauty of the sight before his eyes. Few meters above him, lit up by the orange glow of the evening sun, Kagura was sitting on a branch of the antenna. She let her feet swing slowly back and forth, slightly wiggling her bare toes, enjoying the air flowing around them. Okita could only see her profile but he knew she was smiling. Her long hair – _had it always been that long?_ – was swirling wildly in the wind like flames surrounding her face.

Had she always been that beautiful? Okita wasn’t sure if it was his mind or the incredible light surrounding her playing tricks on him. That monstrous girl, foulmouthed and crazy, unbelievably annoying at most times, rude and arrogant, loud and violent. Was it really the same girl, the same Kagura he had known for all these years, who was now sitting up there, too beautiful to look at?

For a moment he couldn’t do anything but stare. _How would it feel to kiss her? To really kiss her?_ Okita’s eyes found the curve of her lips – not that he didn’t know every single detail of her by heart already, because he did. He remembered very well her small mouth and the round shape and pale color of her lips, and how her tiny nose made her lips look a lot fuller than they actually were. It was all burned in his memory, whether he liked it or not. _To kiss her…_ The thought lingered in Okita’s mind. He had kissed her, he had kissed her thrice to be correct, but those kisses... Okita cursed himself to the lowest of all levels of hell. He had kissed her thrice. The first time to get her hopes up for nothing and the second time to crush the last pieces of her trust in him. The third time – kissing her while she was unconscious – was just an appropriate fucking cherry on top of everything. What a way to go. How easy it would have been to kiss her properly in the past. During all of those times they had trained together, fought together or just spent time together. To give her a good proper kiss, to really feel her. Okita clenched his teeth. Now he wouldn’t dare to touch her. Not anymore.

He was just about to speak up when Kagura suddenly said:

“You came.”

She didn’t turn around, but clearly she had sensed him.

“Had to,” Okita replied and started climbing up the antenna. “Had to see you before you go.”

“So you know?” Kagura asked.

Okita’s heart sunk. Until this moment he had hoped, however slightly, that there was a chance…

“You really are going,” he said.

“Uhuh.”

Okita reached the level Kagura was sitting at and swung himself on the other side of the antenna. It was so difficult to say anything. His mind was empty. So they both just sat there, bathing in the last rays of the sun.

“I’m gonna miss the sun here,” Kagura said. “Although I can never enjoy it properly. But like this, in the evenings, when the sun is getting all weak and red, like this I can let the sun touch me.”

They didn’t look at each other but rather stared in the horizon like it was a common decision.

Okita fought against the lump in his throat. “I’m– I’m gonna miss…” he began, but his words faded away. It was impossible for him to finish.

Kagura took a sharp breath and bit her lip.

“Are you going because of me?” Okita blurted out. He hadn’t planned to ask anything like that and he dreaded the answer, but it just came out. He quickly glanced at Kagura who was clearly startled. She hadn’t expected this.

Kagura gathered her thoughts for a moment. “Partly,” she finally said.

“Would you stay because of me?” Okita asked with a barely audible voice. _Shit._ He didn’t have the right to ask. It was Kagura’s decision and it was difficult enough as it was.

Kagura sniffed and bit her lip so hard it would leave a mark. Her hand holding the antenna was turning pale and she started shaking a little.

When Okita noticed this, he panicked. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked—“ he started, but Kagura silenced him with a glance.

“I wouldn’t,” she said heavily. “I wouldn’t stay. I need to go and most of it has nothing to do with you.”

Okita fell silent again. This was it then. They were only an arm length apart, but it could have been light-years. So difficult it was to close the gap. He heard Kagura sniffing again and tried to think anything to say, anything at all.

Kagura was the first one to speak. “I can write you,” she said. “You know, letters.”

“That would be nice,” Okita answered, painfully aware how devastating it would be to receive those letters. To hear of her new life, how she traveled and saw the universe and how she developed as a fighter while he continued to be the same Shinsengumi captain, one year after another. And by time, the letters would grow less and less frequent until some day she would stop writing. Or worse, he would realize from her letters, that the Kagura he had loved was gone. That the letters he received were written by a merciless Yato fighter, succumbed by her bloodlust. Or even worse: She would write and tell him that she had found someone else. Okita’s mind was smarting from the thoughts. _She will find someone else._

The sun casted its last weak rays on them before completely disappearing behind the horizon. The sky was full of peculiar, puffy clouds that were slowly traveling towards the sea. The setting sun colored them slowly from blazing oranges and reds into looming purples.

_“Sometimes things that are messy and complicated can look quite simple if you just try to view them from a different angle”_

The old ramen shop owner’s words came back into Okita’s mind.

“What do you think that cloud looks like?” he suddenly asked, his voice breaking the long silence.

Kagura swiveled around with a surprised look on her face. Okita was pointing at a large, strangely shaped cloud that was floating alone, separated from the others.

“I don’t know…” Kagura said and tilted her head to get a better look. “Maybe it’s a penguin. Or Elizabeth!”

“I was thinking that it looks like a spaceship,” Okita said quietly, still staring at the cloud in the horizon. “The kind of spaceship that could take us to all kinds of adventures.”

He glanced at Kagura and met her large blue eyes staring straight at him. She looked… expectant. Her eyes were innocent and fragile, and Okita got a sudden feeling that she was a butterfly that could be crashed by even the slightest force.

The words stuck in his throat. After Mitsuba’s death, Okita had decided to live his life without taking these risks. He didn’t mind risking his life – he was doing it often enough – but putting his emotions on line had been always out of the question. It was a part in him that he had protected carefully all these years. And now he was going to take the risk. He had finally met the moment when he couldn’t protect his feelings anymore.

“China…” he began, trying to find his voice, trying to find the words. “China, would you like to go traveling with me?”

Kagura’s eyes were wide and her hair was swirling around her face. She stared at him, waiting for him to continue and so Okita continued.

“You know, we could see all kinds of planets together. And travel thousands and thousands of miles, light-years.” Word by word, the hesitation in his voice disappeared. “It would be fun. To fight all kinds of crazy aliens. I don’t even know what all!”

Tears were silently gathering in Kagura’s eyes and flowing down her cheeks. Okita wanted to dry them, to sweep them of with his finger, but he didn’t touch her. He just watched and waited for a reaction.

“You would come with me?” Kagura finally said.

“I would come with you. If you just let me come.”

“Could you just leave like that? Your life… Your life, everything here.”

“I wouldn’t care.”

They stared at each other. _I wouldn’t care. If you’re gone, I’m not sure I have a life here anymore._

“Kagura, I’m so sorry. Sorry. For everything that has happened.” Okita took a deep breath. Saying the words aloud, finally apologizing, felt good. His mind felt instantly lighter, even if he knew that saying the words didn’t really change anything.

“I- I- I want to make it up to you. I want to help you. I want to travel with you. Protect you. If you need protection, I mean. To be there for you. I know that you’re going to become strong, so strong that you don’t really need my protection anymore. But there’s something that I want to protect.”

Okita took a deep breath. He had finally realized what it was.

“I want to protect the Kagura that I know. To protect you from yourself. You are a Yato and there is nothing wrong with that. We can’t take the Yato from you, we know it now, me and Danna, we both know it. But just like you’ll always be a Yato, you’ll always be the Kagura we all know. I want to be there so that you will never forget who you are. I want to be there to remind you that you can always come back to Earth. Maybe you belong to the battlefields out there, but you will always belong here, too, and we can come back whenever you want and you’re ready.”

Tears were silently dropping from Kagura’s cheeks and Okita’s chest tightened. _Why isn’t she saying anything?_ He felt naked, exposed. For the first time in his life he had willingly put his life on the line. He had taken the risk and told her everything. It was good but… The unbearable feeling of vulnerability that followed was killing him from the inside. _Why isn’t she saying anything?_

Had he crossed a line that he wasn’t supposed to cross? Maybe Kagura had no wish to go with him and now, with all this talk, the situation had turned uncomfortable and embarrassing. And would it be a wonder if Kagura didn’t want to see him ever again, after everything he had done? Even if Kagura had feelings for him, neglecting them would be just rational. He had hurt her too much.

Okita’s mind darkened as the seconds ticked by. He couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “I never should have said anything.” He closed his eyes, trying to hide the pain that was slowly taken over his whole body. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. You’re going with your father and it’s not like you want to-“

_A touch. A very soft touch. Kagura’s fingers softly pressing against his lips._

Okita opened his eyes. Kagura was close, closer than before. Her cheeks and eyes wet with tears, hair stuck on her skin, teeth clenched tightly together.

“Shut up, you stupid idiot,” she said and shook her head. “Don’t say that.”

And without a warning, she threw herself against him. So hard, Okita’s balance faltered and he almost tripped over from the branch of antenna he was sitting at. Kagura grabbed him from the front of his jacket and burrowed her head into his chest.

“Don’t say things like that, you stupid sadist,” she sobbed, and her sobs and the shaking of her body grew more vigorous. “Because… Because there’s nothing I would hope more than to travel with you.”

When the words made their way into Okita’s consciousness, he was sure his heart stopped for a second. He swallowed, pressed his eyes tightly shut, and let go. Kagura’s touch had broken the barrier he had placed between them. She was leaning on him, relying on him, trusting him. The warmness and tingling spread around his body. She trusted him and he would show that he was worth the trust.

Okita threw his hands around her and pressed her tightly against him. He had been so close to drowning but now he had the lifebelt in his hands and he was never going to let it go. He planted small kisses one after another in her hair and couldn’t believe he was experiencing the happiness that slowly flowed over him.

“China…” he whispered in her hair. “China… I love you so much.”

“I love you too, you stupid idiot of a sadist,” Kagura answered, sobbing in his jacket.

The risk. He had taken the risk and only time would show what would happen, but at this very moment, the risk felt worth taking. The first stars lit up in the evening sky. To Okita, they looked nothing like before. They weren’t stars in the sky anymore. They were destinations.

 

* * *

 

 

**EPILOGUE**

Gintoki stood on the side of a loud group of people in the O-Edo Terminal. Kagura was in the middle of the group, surrounded by everyone and drowned in hugs and wishes of good luck. He wasn’t surprised. Despite everything that had happened, Kagura was a good and kind person and people knew it.

Umibozu was standing on the side of the group as well, alone and impossible to read. Maybe he was proud of his daughter, maybe he was afraid of what was going to happen, or maybe he was just confused by the many people who had showed up. Whatever the case was, he had a stern expression on his face as he studied the situation.

But not everyone was here. Despite the fact that Gintoki was able to find few Shinsengumi members in the crowd, one was missing. _The most important one, the one whose presence Kagura would have appreciated the most,_ Gintoki thought. He tried to look for one more black jacket, but couldn’t find Okita. _Too bad it had to go like this. That he didn’t even come and say his goodbyes._

But then the crowd started to shift and surprised voices filled the air. And Gintoki saw.

Okita had arrived, but instead of wearing his black Shinsengumi jacket he wore a simple gray yukata. And moreover, he had a black bag, not any smaller than Kagura’s backpack, easily swung over his shoulder. And then he placed his other hand over Kagura’s shoulders and squeezed her against him. The way he did it looked so simple and easy – like it was something familiar, like they had been like this forever. The smile they shared was pure happiness.

Gintoki sighed and straightened himself. A weight of thousand rocks had just disappeared from his shoulders. He walked over to them and saw the slight uneasiness in Okita’s eyes when their eyes met. But there was no need for uneasiness because from everything that he saw in front of him, Gintoki knew immediately that this was what Kagura had wanted.

“Both of you, take good care of yourselves,” he said and ruffled Kagura’s hair.

The last call for the ship they were taking was announced in the terminal and Gintoki turned to leave.

“And Sougo, take good care of my Kagura-chan.”

He smiled because he knew it was going to be alright now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was it. I have just finished my first long multi-chaptered story and if I'm honest, I'm dying to hear your opinions, whatever they are.
> 
> The support that I've got from here, all the wonderful and helpful comments and the Kudos that you have left, have kept me motivated. Thank you so much, everyone, and I truly hope that you have enjoyed the story!
> 
> As a side note, I've played with an idea of a sequel of some kind. Maybe it could be one shots that take place in their future adventures, I'm not sure yet. But for now, this work is finished. :)


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